INDIAN AND INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENTS
Steve Sachs, IUPUI
Environmental developments
Perhaps the most important developments affecting everyone,
and most particular Indigenous people who often are the most
severely impacted, around the world, including in the U.S.,
are those effecting the environment. Global warming bringing
climate change is the most pressing issue, but it is closely
related to problems of overuse of resources, pollution and other
forms of environmental degradation. A brief summary of important
recent environmental developments includes: U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said, in February, that Climate change poses as
much danger to the world as war, as he urged the United
States to take the lead in the fight against global warming,
and prepared to urge strong action against global warming at
the then upcoming G8 summit. In May, Ki-moon appointed three
well known international figures as climate change envoys,
to strengthen global action against global warming. The final
draft of the second report from the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change was completed by scientists and officials
from more than 100 nations in Bangkok, Thailand, in May, along
the lines of the preliminary draft (reported in the winter issue
of NCJ. at: www.nonviolentchangejournal.org). The report
called for immediate, substantial action across the world to
reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels, over
the next 25 years. If current trends continue, the current levels,
which have risen 70% since 1970, could increase by an additional
90% in that period. The report projected that to return
to 2000 global carbon dioxide emission levels by 2030 would
require a cost of $50 to $100 a released ton, equivalent to
raising the price of gasoline $.25 to $.30 a gallon. It
was estimated that carbon dioxide reduction might cause a small
reduction in global economic activity, of perhaps 0.1% a year.
(At the same time – and not necessarily a contradiction - other
experts find that developing alternative energy and conservation
technology will create jobs). A UN report. in March, found that
poor nations will suffer the greatest injury from global
warming, while wealthy nations focus primarily on their own
risks (for details, see “Poor Nations Bear Brunt As World
Warms, While Rich focus on Own Risks,” The New York Times,
pp. 1 and 6). The 60th Annual UN DPI/NGO conference,
at the UN in New York, September 5-7, focused on “Climate Change:
How it Impacts us all,” and included two Indigenous sessions.
As speakers at the opening session noted, it was encouraging
that there was a huge increase in concern about doing something
about global warming, so that instead of the initially anticipated
about 2000 people representing groups from around the world
registering for the conference, over 2500 did so, Final
figures on participation were over 1800 from 80 nations (it
is usual that less people come than register). For more information
go to: www.un.org/dpi/ngosection. One point made at the conference
is that the crisis in Darfur, in part may be the result
of struggle fro resources because of drought, making it the
first contemporary climate change war. In October, the
NGO conference committee posted the declaration of the conference
on moving to contain climate change on a website to discuss
and share practical of ways responding to and limiting climate
change www.climatecaucus.net.
Meanwhile, under the leadership of the Secretary General,
a major UN conference on acting to reduce global warming and
climate change, and particularly to take international action
beyond Kyoto is set to take place in Bali this fall.
As recent signs of climate change appear in
Brazil, including an unprecedented, severe draught in the Amazon
region and the occurrence of a hurricane for the first time
in the southern region of Brazil, the government is reconsidering
its environmental policy, and for the first time is willing
to consider measures in international negotiations that it previously
rejected, such as market based programs to curb carbon emissions
resulting from massive deforestation in the Amazon. Energy
use and demand is continuing to rise sharply in developing nations,
bringing with it increased pressure on dwindling resources and
escalating pollution, particularly greater release into the
atmosphere of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.
Thus China surpassed the U.S., this summer as the nation
emitting the most carbon dioxide, while economic growth
has brought about a shortage of natural gas in Latin America,
at the same time that increasing demand for oil is outpacing
supply – and potential reserve capacity – first, significantly
raising the costs oil (and hence everything else), and
second, setting off a race to replace oil with growing crops
for biofuel, mostly corn for ethanol, (which requires more energy
to produce than oil – thus increasing carbon emissions),
in turn greatly raising food prices (e.g., the serious
rise in cost of tortias in Mexico), which while helpful to many
small, including indigenous, farmers, is harsh upon poor people,
including many indigenous persons. However, In September, an
oversupply of ethanol caused its price to drop 30%. The rush
to biofuel agriculture is also setting off huge illegal land
grabs and forced eviction of those who live and make a living
upon them, particularly in Columbia, which are increasingly
involving the appropriating of tribal lands. Biofuel is
also being developed in Hawai’i, where a great deal of
land formerly used to produce pineapples is now vacant. There
has been a move, with strong Native Hawaiian support, to use
that land to return Hawai’i to being self-sufficient in food,
instead of importing most of what it eats. Doing so would reduce
carbon and other emissions, and lessen fuel consumption by cutting
out long distance transportation. Currently, there is a major
effort by Hawai’i BioEnergy, an international consortium, and
others, to use a great deal of the local land for biofuel production,
with at least the initial use of energy being in Hawai’i, as
a move toward energy self-sufficincy.
On August 17, temperatures hit
an all time record high in Japan (105.6 degrees F. in the
western city of Tajimi), as the death toll from the ongoing
heat wave in the country reached 13, with almost 900 people
hospitalized. Extreme weather in the United States this summer
has killed dozens of people. Rescuers were looking for people
swept away by flash floods from the remnants of tropical storm
Erin, which dropped as much as 11 inches of ran in some locations
along the Gulf Coast, August 17. The heat wave in the South
and Midwest was blamed for at least 44 deaths, with more expected
to be confirmed, as of August 22. At the Browns Ferry nuclear
plant, overheated water in the Tennessee River forced the shutdown
of one reactor and slow down, with reduced power production,
of two others. So far, this is one of the few such cases,
but there is concern that the reductions from overheated water
may increase. David Lockbaum, a former Browns Ferry engineer,
now with the Union of Concerned Scientists, stated, “This is
an unforeseen impact of global warming. These plants do not
do very well in extremely hot weather.” In late August, several
places in the Midwest, including Ohio, suffered the worst
flooding in almost a century. The Southeast has been
suffering its most severe draught in over a century, seriously
reducing crop yields and forcing premature cattle sales in Georgia,
Mississippi and Tennessee, and – if the draught continues –
an insufficient supply of drinking water, particularly for the
City of Atlanta, whose primary reservoir has been shrinking
rapidly. The financial impact on many farmers has been severe.
The heat and draught has increased fires, while low waters have
reduced navigation on some rivers, while also limiting some
hydroelectric power production. For gardeners, climate
change has some benefits, as subtropical plants are becoming
viable further into what has been the temperate zone, and also
moving to formerly colder areas on their own. But milder
winter and longer growing seasons are increasing and spreading
insects that attack crops and carry diseases. Some types
of beetles have been doing immense damage to trees, including
to pine forests (as in British Columbia where more than 75%
of the Pine tees are expected to die in a few years). In addition,
the emerald ash borer, an immigrant to North America
from Asia, is destroying the white ash trees used for making
baseball bats and may strike out, or seriously shift, that industry.
The beetles are blamed for killing 25,000 white ash trees
in Maryland, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio in the last
five years. Unwanted vegetation - weeds – are also growing
faster and spreading, and some intrusive species do especially
well with higher carbon dioxide levels. For example, kudzu,
the fast growing vine that has choked out whole forests in the
south is growing faster, and spreading north. Poison ivy is
not only growing faster, but is more potent, while some of the
worst allergy causing plants, such as ragweed, are producing
more pollen.
Some aspects of climate
change are taking place considerably faster than previously
believed. Geophysical Research Letters published a finding,
in late April, that Arctic sea ice is melting much faster
than previously estimated, as a result of human induced global
warming. Melting has increased to the point where it is
possible that there will be no floating ice in the summer in
the Arctic by sometime between 2050 and the early years of the
next century. Measures made regularly every September indicate
that the rate of loss of sea ice per decade has increased from
2.5% in 1953 to 7.8% today. The melting is also raising oceans
and reducing land area. East Anglia, in Brittan has been losing
land to the sea from erosion for a century, but the rate of
land loss has increased tremendously in the last few years.
One farmer’s formerly 23 acre field, is now only 3 acres – too
small to plant. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change report indicates that unless current trends are reversed,
by 2080, 60 million people may be flooded out of their homes
and jobs. A similar problem is occurring as deserts spread
into fertile lands. A United Nations University report,
published June 27, warned that the extensive desertification
in parts of Africa and Asia, if not checked quickly, could create
“an environmental crisis of global proportions,” triggering
massive migrations and potential social, economic and political
instability.
China, whose rapidly
expanding coal powered, and increasingly polluting, economy
surpassed the United States as the worlds greatest producer
of greenhouse gasses, this summer, released its first
national strategy on climate change, in June. The plan rejects
the imposition of mandatory caps on greenhouse emissions.
China is already suffering from a variety of types of pollution
– not only global warming increasing emissions – (though it
has tried to hide reports of human and environmental losses
from ecological degradation, including suppressing reports of
statistical models that indicate that perhaps as many as
750,000 people die prematurely each year in China as a result
of air and water pollution), and has begun to take steps
to improve the situation, including a plan to reduce air
and water pollution by 10% by 2010. U.S. Federal District
Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong, in Oakland, CA, ruled,
August 21, that the United States government “unlawfully
withheld action,” by close to two years, in not publishing a
study, required by the Global Climate Change Research Act of
1990, on the impact of global warming, and ordered the government
to publish a summary report by March.
Beyond global warming,
negative effects of environmental change from pollution and
overuse of resources continue. A survey by the Audubon
Society of 20 common bird species in the United States
shows that in the last 40 years these species have declined
by an average of 68%. Bobwhites, for example, have declined
from 31 million, 40 years ago, to 5,5 million today, while field
sparrows are down from 18 million to 5.8 million. A study by
Ransom A. Myers if Dalhouse University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
indicates that over fishing of sharks is likely having the
secondary effect of destroying bay scallop fisheries in some
parts of the North American eastern seaboard, as several
species that feed on scallops, previously kept in check by sharks,
have greatly expanded. African Penguins are also in decline,
down from 1.5 million in southern Africa a century ago, to about
30,000 in 2001, the numbers have plummeted by almost 60% to
around 18,000, the biggest recent cause being a migration
of their main food, sardines, further north, whom they cannot
follow. Meanwhile, the Zika virus, carried by Mosquitoes,
which causes rash, join pain, pink eye and fever in humans –
and has no specific cure or preventive vaccine – has been spreading
from Uganda and South East Asia, where out breaks are rare,
into Micronesia, where there were 42 confirmed, and 65 probable
identified cases, as of the beginning of July, while in Arizona,
warming lakes are expanding the growth of an amoeba bacillus
that has killed several swimmers by entering their noses
and accessing and then attacking the brain.
In June, Maine became the third state to pass
a law, signed by the governor, to cap carbon dioxide emissions.
Maine, which produces 3% of the nation/s CO2, will
cap emissions at 5.9 million tons in 2009, and reduce them by
10% by 2019. Congress is currently moving to increase funding
for research in renewable energy and methods of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions. While there are complaints that some of this
funding is “green pork,” a number of promising projects appear
likely to gain financing. One of the proposals being considered
is producing electric power from coal – which is plentiful (but
whose mining is usually quite polluting) - via transforming
it into gas, and removing the carbon dioxide, on which the Senate
Energy Committee held hearings in April. Among the other research
to counter climate change are experiments to greatly increase
carbon dioxide absorbing plankton in the ocean, primarily by
dissolving large amounts of iron in the sea, which is a plankton
nutrient.
For an overview discussion of climate and environmental change
and Indigenous people, see “Climate Change, Related Environmental
Degradation and Indigenous People,” below in “Articles.” Some
particulars are in Developments, below, Here are a few other
Indigenous environmental items. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental
freedoms of indigenous peoples, told the UN Third Committee
Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), October 22, that global
warming and increasing exploitation of natural resources, continues
to bring about the dispossessing of Indigenous peoples’ ancestral
lands, to the point that some small number of isolated communities
are at risk of physically disappearing, in spite of recent progress
in recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples. In addition,
Mr. Stavenhagen stated, various Arctic peoples were now suffering
the direct consequences of global warming. Further compounding
all of the negatives already cited was the criminalization of
the social organizations of indigenous peoples, which defended
their rights. He observed that, that by itself, had generated
new human rights violations. For more on the Third Committee
meeting go to: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3891.doc.htm.
Some recent particulars are as follows.
A number of U.S. tribes are benefiting from carbon credits,
the planting of trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, to offset
the production of the greenhouse gas in power production
and industry. Several tribes, beginning with the Confederated
Tribes of the Coleville Reservation in Washington, in 1990,
have been paid by companies to plant trees, often as reforestation,
Others include the Nez Perce Nation of Idaho, and the
Lummi Tribe in Washington. American Indians are being
honored as the First Environmentalists in the Second Annual
American Indian Heritage Month Celebration in Los Angeles,
in November. American Indian tribes from all over Turtle Island
(North America) are invited to participate, beginning with Native
Ceremonies to Open Connection with Mother Earth and an honoring
parade on November 10. On Day Two of Heritage Month, Red Nation
is coordinating a Help the Earth Environmental Youth Empowerment
Summit involving eleven area middle schools. Five hundred youth
will speak out for the Earth and all her living systems in session
topics that include: Global Warming, Water, Air, Energy, Animals
and Social Justice. The Red Nations Pow Wow will also have an
environmental theme, including talking circles on environmental
concerns and, to re-tune the damaged balance on Mother Earth,
the Pow Wow will close with a human Medicine Wheel and this
understanding: “Whatever place on Earth we may have come from,
now this land, this place surrounding us right here, Los Angeles,
is our shared land. The invitation to this profoundly inclusive
awareness, extended from the native to the non-native peoples
of Turtle Island, will be carried by the living Medicine Wheel
to radically transform our relationships to each other, to Mother
Earth and all of life.” “The Earth, air, water and celebration
belong to all peoples, and Turtle Island needs us all” states
apache leader Romero. “As Los Angeles is the urban home of the
‘first environmentalists,’ it is also home to the most diverse
set of communities on Earth. Our City is also the media voice
of the world, so that the meaning and power behind our Heritage
Month invitation to share the wisdom of our land and heritage
can spread beyond our borders to inspire citizens of the world
to find their connectedness across their diversity. We are the
‘village on the hill’ that can convey the healing medicine of
the Pau Wau to a planet in crisis.” “As one tribe now, we, Angelenos,
cup the water in our hands, imbibe it with our blessing and
transmit our vision across the sea.” Meanwhile, Ealat, the
Reindeer Herders’ Vulnerability Network of Indigenous people
in Norway, partnering with the Association of World Reindeer
Herders, is undertaking a Study, Reindeer Pastoralism in
a Changing Climate, to determine the ability of this ancient
herding way of living to adapt to climate change, and to propose
policy to government and business that will increase the viability
of reindeer herding in the face of climate change. For more
information go to www.ealat.org.
The International Conservation and Education Fund is
making digital films with local Indigenous people in the
Congo on preserving forest and wildlife habitats, that are
tailored to educating people in the region about effective
conservation practices.
U.S.
Developments
While Congress and the
White House made no progress over the summer toward passing legislation
to settle the Cobell individual Indian trust fund litigation,
District Court Judge James Robertson announced at pretrial hearings,
June 18, that the case, now in its 11th year, will
come to trial in October. In doing so, he commented that his
predecessor in handling the case, Judge Royce Lamberth, Lamberth's
work on the case, which has entered its 11th year. At one point
he remarked that a Lamberth decision in the case may have been
reversed on one decision on appeal, but not his thinking. ''And
his thinking is very well-developed, very profound and very useful.
... I will treat it sort of as preemptively correct.''
The Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA) has denied the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the Missisquoi
Abenaki Nation of Vermont federal acknowledgement, ending
the tribe's 27-year quest for recognition through the federal
agency process. The U.S. House voted, June
7, to approve federal for recognition for the Lumbee Indians
of North Carolina (Lumbi Recognition Act. HR 65, S 333).
May 8, House passed the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes
of Virginia Recognition Act of 2007, HR 1294, would give
federal recognition to six state recognized tribes: the Chickahominy
Indian Tribe, Chickahominy Indian Tribe – Eastern Division, Upper
Mattaponi Tribe, Rappahannock Tribe, Inc., Monacan Indian Nation,
and Nanswmond Indian Tribe, putting land into trust for each tribe,
but prohibiting Indian gaming under IGRA. The Native Hawaiian
Recognition Act, HR 505, S 310, approved by the Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs, May 10, and the House Natural Resources Committee,
May 2, would establish a Native Hawaiian Interagency coordinating
Group within the executive branch; recognize Native Hawaiian people’s
right to organize a government; and set out a process for the
Native Hawaiian community to create a membership roll
and a governing body. The bill would enable the government to
transfer land, resources and other assets to the Native Hawaiian
government, once it was established. At hearings by the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs on the recognition process, in
September, Interior Department spokespersons stated that the
BIA is taking steps to speed up the process by trying to eliminate
paperwork and layers of bureaucracy that have stalled some tribes’
efforts. The department is also considering hiring additional
staff to work on the recognition process and establishing
firmer timelines so that petitions move along.
The House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing,
October 3, on the Indian Tribal Federal Recognition Act,
HR 2837, which would move the federal recognition process for
tribes from the BIA and the Interior Department to a three person
independent Commission on Indian Recognition, with a 12 year
life time. Tribes would have three years from the date of enactment
to submit letters of intent to the commission and eight years
submit petitions for recognition. The bill would set strict time
limits for commission action, require records relied on by the
commission to be made available to petitioners in a timely manner,
and allow petitioning tribes to appeal commission decisions directly
to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Mandatory,
streamlined criteria would be required, closely following the
legal standards in place prior to the establishment of the current
BIA process in 1978, requiring a petitioning tribe to: 1) Prove
that it has been identified as an American Indian entity on a
substantial basis since 1900; 2) Prove that a predominant portion
of the membership of the petitioner (a) comprise a community distinct
from those communities surrounding that community and (b) has
existed as a community from historical times to the present; 3)
Prove that it has maintained political influence or authority
over its members as an autonomous entity from historical times
until the time of the documented petition; 4) Provide a copy of
the then present governing document of the petitioner that includes
the membership criteria, and 5) Provide a list all then current
members of the petitioner. The Department of Health and Human
Services would be required to provide grants to tribes seeking
recognition to research an prepare petitions.
The BIA reversed itself,
in late June, allowing the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community
of Michigan to transfer 752 acres it owns into a tax-exempt trust,
a decision that could cost Scott County and other local governments
millions of dollars in property taxes. Scott County had a month
to file an appeal.
The Senate Finance Committee
sent S. 1200, reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement
Act, to the Senate, September 12. The committee passed a cluster
of provisions aimed at improving American Indian and Alaska Native
access to Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance
Program. The main committee of jurisdiction over the larger bill,
the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, passed S. 1200, May 10.
Senator Harry Reid, (D-NV), the Senate majority leader, has agreed
to schedule floor time for a vote on S. 1200, reauthorizing the
Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The House version is the Indian
Health Care Improvement Act of 2007, H.R. 1328.
The House and
Senate passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization
(SCHIP) (S976, HR 3162)m in August, with Indian provisions,
and the bill went to Conference. The Senate version would
set aside 10% o the authorize $100 million over five years for
grants to improve outreach and enrollment of eligible children
to the Indian Health Service (IHS), tribal health providers and
urban Indian organizations for Indian children. Another 10% reserved
for the HHS national outreach campaign would include developments
of materials for Indian and others with low English proficiency.
HHS would be authorized to undertake outreach on and near reservations,
and the existing 10% limit on expenditure for outreach purposes
would not apply to such activity, Documents issued by federally
recognized tribes showing tribal membership would be accepted
as proof of citizenship and eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP.
The House version contains a similar, but not identical,
provision about documentation of citizenship. It provides for
the first time that payments by HIS, tribal or urban Indian pharmacies
for prescriptions would count as if the beneficiary had paid for
them out of his/her own pocket, in calculating the beneficiary’s
payments toward deductibles in Medicare part D. The Special Diabetes
Program for Indians would be extended from the end of FY2008 through
FY2009. A reconciled bill was passed, and vetoed by the President
on October 3, and the Veto was sustained in the House. A similar
bill was being developed by both houses, later in October.
Senator Baucus (D-MT) introduced the Tribal Foster Care and
Adoption Access Act of 2007, on August 2, that would amend
current legislation that reimburses states, but not tribes (unless
there is a tribal-state agreement) for eligible foster care and
adoption services to allow reimbursing of tribes and improve their
services. The Senate approved the Indian Child Protection and
Family Violence Protection Amendments of 2007, S 398, June
25, that would authorize appropriations for child sexual abuse
and treatment programs, greatly increase data gathering and reporting
to congress on child abuse, and add felony child abuse and felony
child neglect to the list of offenses in the Major Crimes Act.
Additional offenses are listed that could bring loss of employment
in positions with contact with children. To eliminate duplication
of background checks for tribes, the bill would provide that background
checks required by the act would satisfy similar requirements
in other legislation. Also the previously not funded Indian Child
Protection and Family Violence Prevention Grants would have their
authorization eliminated.
The House passed the
Native American Housing and Self-Determination Assistance Act
reauthorization (HR 3002), in early September. The bill includes
a provision that would prevent the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
from accessing the bill's federal housing funds attached by Representative
Melvyn Watt (D-NC), because of a Cherokee referendum removed the
future tribal membership of current tribal members who are descendents
of the Cherokee freedmen (who are of African descent). The
Cherokee referendum removed members who are not on their original
rolls. A second roll contained many freed slaves. The Cherokee
rolls do contain a number of freedmen. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND),
chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said he might
introduce the Senate bill as early as the week of Sept. 17. On
June 21, Representative Diane Watson (D-CA) introduced HR 2824,
the stated purpose of which is: ''To sever United States' government
relations with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma until such time
as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma restores full tribal citizenship
to the Cherokee Freedmen disenfranchised in the March 3, Cherokee
Nation vote and fulfills all its treaty obligations with the
Government of the United States, and for other purposes.'' Severance
of relations includes the cessation of ''all financial obligations''
and the ''authority to conduct gaming.'' The resolution, however,
which is currently pending before two House committees, Natural
Resources and Judiciary, does not propose to withhold federal
recognition. At Senate hearings on the housing reauthorization,
July 19, tribal leaders said that more money is needed to help
meet housing needs on reservations where thousands of American
Indians live in substandard homes with no indoor plumbing or central
heat. David Brien, chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of
Chippewa Indians in North Dakota, said the Bush administration's
budget request for the program - about $627 million - is far less
than the $1 billion tribes and national advocacy groups say is
required.
A Head Start bill has been passed
in both the House and the Senate over the summer, and was
awaiting reconciliation in September. Indian tribes are
slated, in both versions, for permanent ''set-aside'' funding,
at 4% of overall Head Start funding in the Senate bill, and of
3.5% percent in the House measure. The House bill would make new
funding available immediately, but, unlike the Senate bill, would
also make it conditional on a study by the Secretary of Health
and Human Services that would risk a finding of ''status quo''
funding for the Indian set-aside, that would cancel out any gain
in funding over the current fiscal year. In addition, because
of the influx of funding to Indian and Hispanic Head Start programs,
some ''slots'' in other Head Start programs would be defunded,
a direct loss of services to children, which Indian Head Start
directors oppose. Another alternative is for Indian Head Start
programs, which have always accepted funding through the set-aside
in the overall Head Start bill, to ask the House and Senate Appropriations
committees to designate more funding for them directly.
Both versions provide that funds recaptured, reduced or withheld
from an Indian Head Start program must be redirected to other
Indian head start programs. Indian Head Start programs operating
at less than full enrolment would be able to shift a portion of
their base to their Early Head Start program. Eligibility would
increase from poverty level to 130% poverty level. The Secretary
of Health and Human Services would be required to conduct annual
regional consultations with tribal governments on Head Start and
Early Head Start (and the Senate version also requires consultation
with tribes, National Indian Head Start Directors Association
and Indian/Alaska Native experts in child development and linguists
on the review and promulgation of program standards. Both bills
would create a new program of five year grants to tribal colleges
and universities that, among other things, would increase the
number of Indian Head start staff and parents with advanced degrees
in childhood education and related fields, and education programs
in tribal language and culture.
The Tribal colleges and University Facility Loan
Forgiveness Act, S 481, was approved, April 10, by the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs. It would authorize partial repayment
of up to $15000 of Department of Education loans for people who
commit to employment as full time faculty members at tribal universities
and colleges. The bill would also amend the Public Health
Service Act to authorize nursing instructors at these institutions
to be eligible for the existing loan repayment program for nurses
agreeing to serve at least two years in a health care facility
with a critical shortage of nurses.
Toward the end of September, the House and senate
Democratic Leadership directed Committee staffs to conduct a walk
through of the House and Senate energy bills and begin
negotiating a joint bill. Tribal provisions in the bills at that
time are as follows: HR 3221, the New Directions for Energy
Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act, which
stated: that the United States consult with tribes when negotiating
a new agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
to reduce greenhouse gasses; the Secretary of State is authorized
to direct funding to tribal colleges as part of an international
program to reduce greenhouse gasses; the energy department is
authorized to provide research grants to tribes and tribal colleges
for biofuel production technologies; a tribal representative shall
be appointed to the Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee;
The Department of energy shall cooperate with Indian
tribes in setting national policy to help wildlife live with the
effects of global warming; a State and Tribal Wildlife Grants
Program shall be created in the Interior Department, with tribes
receiving 10% of the funding to prepare wildlife conservation
plans; Require the Commerce Department to consult with
tribes in developing a plan to coastlines from the effects of
global warming’ and make tribal colleges eligible for Energy
Department grants for research into renewable fuel production
technologies in states with low rates of ethanol production.
The Senate version of HR 6, the Renewable Fuels, consumer
Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007, included: Increase
the use of renewable fuels from 8.5 billion gallons in 2008 to
36 billion gallons in 2022, from a number of sources including
ethanol, feed grains, algae, and plant and animal waste from what
ever sources, including tribal lands; Require the Energy department
to provide $25 million in annual Fuel Production Grants to governments,
utilities, energy cooperatives and Indian tribes; and authorize
the Energy Department to provide renewable energy construction
grants to state and tribal colleges; authorize the Energy Department
to provide block grants to tribes for energy efficiency and the
reduction of fossil fuel dependency, with 4% of such grants set
aside for tribes.
The Senate, in mid October, approved Oregon
Senator Gordon Smith’s legislation granting Native American
communities equal access to federal funds to combat methamphetamine.
Tribes were unintentionally left out as eligible program applicants
in the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005.
A bill has been introduced
in the Senate that would treat tribal governments the same as
state and local governments for purposes of issuing tax-exempt
municipal bonds, overcoming the current Internal Revenue Service
limitation, restricting tribes to issue tax-exempt bonds only
for ''essential government functions,'' a restriction other governments
do not encounter. The President, August 3, signed
Implementation of the 9/11 Commission Act, PL 110-53, which
contains a section allowing ‘directly eligible tribes’ to receive
funding for homeland security programs directly from the federal
government, so that they will no longer have to go through
the states for such funding. This provision is an addition to
the existing program, reserving a minimum of,1% of the State Homeland
Security Grant Program for directly eligible tribes. Tribes can
also receive funds passed through the states.
The House of Representatives has
passed legislation that
would limit the size of contracts that the Small Business Administration
8(a) program can award to tribes and Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs). The bill has
now moved to the Senate, where it sits before the Senate Committee
on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, chaired by Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass. The reason for the limitation was concern about
the rise in federal contracting dollars to tribal/ANC 8(a)s have increased from
$265 million to more than $1 billion in recent years. Critics
respond that this constitutes collective participation to less
than 1 percent of all federal contracts. On June 20 the
House passed HR2284, a bill to provide business development
assistance to Native American enterprises. The bill would
authorize up to $7 million a year eligible states, who would provide
grants through small business development centers (SBDCs).
The President signed,
June 18, the Native American Home Ownership Opportunity Act,
PL110-37, reauthorizing the Department of Housing and Urban Development
section 184 loan guarantee program through 2012, which guarantees
single family residential loans for Native American families,
Indian housing authorities and tribes. The House passed the
Hawaiian Home Ownership Opportunity Act, HR 835, March 28,
that would reauthorize programs providing assistance to Native
Hawaiians through 2012, including the Native Hawaiian Housing
Block Grant and the Native Hawaiian Housing Loan Guarantee Program.
At the August congressional break, a similar bill in the Senate,
S 710, had passed the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and was
pending in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban
Affairs.
The Tigua Tribe of Texas,
one of two Indian nations required to have Congressional legislation
to change their membership requirements, would receive the right
to determine requirements for tribal membership under a bill passed
by the House of Representatives, in July. The act, introduced
by Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-El Paso, TX), would amend
a 1987 act requiring an individual to be one-eighth Tigua to be
part of the tribe.
The Ysleta del
Sur Pueblo Blood Quantum Requirement Act, HR 1696, passed
the House July 30, allowing the tribe to change its membership
criteria from the congressionally imposed 1/8 blood quantum to
any descendents from the tribe’s original roll. On the same day,
the House passed the Cocopah Lands Act, HR 673, requiring
the Secretary of the Interior to take previously purchased land
into trust for the tribe to be considered part of the tribe’s
reservation, but not to be eligible for gaming, on the condition
that no lands be taken into trust that have outstanding legal
claims, mortgages or back taxes owed, nor “recognized environmental
conditions or contamination related concerns.” At the same time,
the House passed the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe Reservation Land
bill, HR 2120, clarifying the status of certain lands, defining
them as part of the reservation as of April 19, 1988 for purposes
of gaming, under IGRA. Also passed by the house that day was the
Pechanga Land Transfer Act, HR 2963, that would transfer
1200 aces administered by the BIA to the Pechanga band, to be
put into trust, but the Band’s use of the land would be restricted
to “the protection, preservation and maintenance of the archaeological,
cultural and wildlife resources.”
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, June 18, approved Senate
Joint resolution 4 (H J Res, 6) acknowledging a long history of
official depredation and ill-conceived policies by the United
States Government regarding Indian Tribes and offering an apology
to all Native Peoples, This is almost the same as S.J. Res
15 in the 109th Congress. In October, The Committee made a landmark change into a routine housekeeping
bill that could make it possible for modern tribes to file a new
claim for the 9,300-year-old remains known as Kennewick Man,
found 11 years ago on the shores of the Columbia River in southeastern
Washington, and might preclude scientific study of other very
old remains.
The House passed
the Water Resources Development Act, HR 1495, August 1,
which includes several tribal related provisions: The Tribal
Partnership Program of the Army Corps of Engineers is expanded
from authorizing feasibility studies for water projects that benefit
tribes on their reservations, to also building the projects; The
lands eligible for the program would be extended to Oklahoma tribes
(as determined by the Secretary of the Interior); The Secretary
of Interior would be authorized to enter into cooperative agreements
with New Mexico tribes to “carry out any operation or maintenance
activity associated with the flood control project.” “on any land
of which is occupied by a flood control project that is owned
and operated by the Corps of Engineers”; $140 million is authorized
for the ‘St. Mary Project” on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana,
and the fund disbursement and investment strategy is changed for
the Cheyenne River Sioux and Lower Brule Sioux Tribes’ wildlife
habitation restoration funds.
The President signed into law, June 13: the Grande Ronde and
Siletz Self Determination Waivers, PL 110-78, a bill to waive
the application of the Indian Self-Determination and Education
Assistance Act to a 20 acre parcel of land transeferred to
two Oregon tribes by the U.S. government, enabling the tribes
to use the land as collateral to finance development, while prohibiting
class II an class III gaming on the property; The America
Competes Act, PL 110-69, which includes a provision for assistance
to states in developing specialty schools in math and science
and creates partnerships between the National Laboratories and
high-need schools to establish math and science centers. Concerning
the Bureau of Indian Education school system, the act limits
the amount reserved for secondary level Indian students to .5%
of the funding for such activities, nationally.
The Professional Boxing Amendment Act of 2007, S 84, was
passed by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation,
May 10, a provision of which would authorize a tribe to create
a boxing commission to regulate on reservation boxing matches,
providing that the regulations are at least as restrictive as
state boxing regulations or U.S. Boxing Commission guidelines.
The House passed HR 2358, The Native American $1 coin Act,
June 12 and the Senate passed a similar bill, S 585, authorizing
the minting of coins honoring Native Americans, that would have
their reverse side changed annually, to make them of more interest
to the public, as there was not great interest in the Sacagawea
dollar, first minted in 2000.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Equitable Compensation Amendment,
HR 487, passed the House May 7, which would allow the Cheyenne
Sioux Tribe to compensate individual tribal land owners for land
lost from flooding as a result of the U.S, government constructing
the Oahe Dam. The copper Valley Native Allotment Resolution
Act of 2007, passed the House, April 17, which would provide
compensation to Native allotment owners for rights of way of the
copper Valley Electric Association that existed before the Alaska
Claims Settlement Act, settling numerous pending law suites.
Identical legislation has been introduced in the Senate, S 205).
The Senate Republican
Steering Committee has been blocking most bills that benefit Native
Americans. National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) President
Joe A. Garcia said, "At first we thought that it was coincidence
that so many bills on Native issues were being blocked by members
of the Republican Steering Committee, but it is clear now that
it is not.” In the Senate, where individual senators can put holds
on bills, a small group working in concert can stop a category
of legislation. The Republican Steering Committee consists of
a few Republican Senators, lead by Senator James DeMint (R-SC),
joined by Senators John Kyl (R-AZ), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Jeff
Sessions (R-AL). Recently, they killed a non-controversial,
bi-partisan piece of legislation, an amendment to the Adam Walsh
Child Protection Act of 2006 (Pl 109-248) that would have
helped tribes in combating sexual predators on tribal lands.
As pased last year, the act requires tribes to comply with its
provisions by this past July 27. The amendment would have given
tribes another year to make important decisions on how they want
to work with the systems registry that is being created by the
U.S. Department of Justice. In February the U.S. House of Representatives
unanimously passed the Native American Methamphetamine Enforcement
and Treatment Act (H.R. 545), to make Indian tribes eligible
to apply for certain grants to fight methamphetamine abuse and
trafficking in Indian Country. Senator Kyl had a hold on the
bill, as of July 27, and was preventing its passage in the
belief that a grant program could somehow confer jurisdiction
to tribes over drug offenses committed in Indian Country. Tribes
badly need these grants for prevention, treatment and enforcement
against drug traffickers, and many observers believe Kyl's obstructionism
is endangering public safety for reservations and their neighbors.
The Republican Steering Committee has also fought the Indian
Health Care Improvement Act, legislation that would modernize
the health care system for reservations and at the end of last
session held up all bills affecting Native Americans.
It was noted in August,
that prior to two recent Congressional hearings, the Office
of Management Budget – that reviews the planned text of executive
branch officials upcoming testimony - had twice in recent months
removed reference to the Snyder Act and the Indian Health Care
Improvement Act “being at the core of the federal government responsibility
for meeting the health needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives”
implying that there is a trust responsibility rooted in law for
the health care for Native Americans, for American Indians”.
Greg Smith of Johnston & Associates in Washington said the
two excisions are not coincidental or unrelated when considered
in light of the Justice Department's characterization, last year,
of programs in the IHCIA reauthorization as race-based. From the
earliest weeks of the current 110th Congress, Capitol Hill staff
and Indian-issue lobbyists, willing to speak with candor only
on condition of anonymity, have warned of an arch-conservative
agenda in Congress to challenge any federal benefit for non-tribal
Native groups as a way of chipping away at the trust relationship.
The Field Hearing
of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
on the Impacts of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in Indian
Country at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico, August
10, included testimony about the severe negative effects of
NCLB on Native children by Governor James Mountain of the
Pueblo San Ildefonso, who is also Chairman of the Eight Northern
Pueblo Council. Governor Mountain opened, saying that he did not
want to be critical; but, in talking with experts, educators,
and teachers, he could only conclude that there is nothing in
NCLB for him to be a proponent. He stated that schools are
trying to meet AYP, but culture and language are being left out.
He stated that NCLB policies are copying history. In the past,
federal policies involved termination, relocation, and assimilation.
NCLB is promoting these ill-advised policies because NCLB seeks
to eliminate Native languages and cultures from Native children’s
education. Mountain said that the Santa Fe Indian School is a
perfect example of how education and culture can be incorporated
to develop much needed comprehensive curriculum. He noted
that the Pueblos are educating non-Natives in addition to Natives.
He stated that NCLB measurements should also measure culture
in addition to math and English. He provided statistics on
the alarming rate of loss of Native languages and that
NCLB detracts from the objectives of the Esther Martinez Native
American Languages Preservation Act of
2006, adding to the loss of Indigenous language, He also urged
consultation with tribes on NCLB and that tribes needed to
have more input in NCLB. Dr. Verie Ann Malina Wright, President
of the National Indian Education association (NIEA), testified
that the research strongly indicates that use of Native languages
in education programs bolsters Native academic achievement and
that research strongly supports this, pointing out that the State
of New Mexico recognized this in passing its Indian Education
Act. She stated that NIEA actively prepared for the reauthorization
of NCLB by conducting 11 field hearings with over 120 witnesses
and that NIEA submitted its legislative recommendations based
upon these hearings to this Committee in March. She noted that
there is a lot of frustration with the implementation of NCLB
as conveyed in Governor Mountain’s testimony. In highlighting
a few of NIEA’s recommendations, she proposed that Title VII
be strengthened to meet the unique needs of native children,
to more effectively reach its goal of recognizing that Native
children have unique educational needs due to their cultures and
backgrounds and that the purpose of Title VII is similar to the
purpose of New Mexico’s Indian Education Act in providing culturally
based educational approaches for Native students. She noted that
these approaches have been proven to increase student performance
as well as awareness of their Native
backgrounds. She asserted that innovative school programs that
incorporate Native language and culture have proven academic success
in Indian Country, showing that students can meet NCLB academic
benchmarks while also learning about their cultures, as exemplified
by the successes of such programs as the Navajo Immersion School
in Ft. Defiance. Dr. Wright urged increased cooperation among
Tribes, States, and the Federal Government in addressing the needs
of Native students, noting NIEA’s proposed amendments that
provide for the inclusion of tribal input on the development of
state, local educational agency, and school plans. She agreed
with Dr. Garcia that programs that encourage ‘growing our own
teachers’ who know the tribe’s cultures and programs is crucial.
She noted that the programs to do this in NCLB are not funded.
She urged the Committee to help us fund these programs. Samantha
Pasena, a recent graduate of the Santa Fe Indian School and a
student at the University of New Mexico, told the committee about
her experiences, and those of her classmates with whom she had
spoken in preparation for the hearing, as students at the Santa
Fe Indian School under NCLB. She commented that states determine
AYP, but that the BIA is their ‘state’, and it decided to use
the New Mexico state standards without consultation with tribal
leaders. She reflected that implementing NCLB requires much
funding and that schools, whose funding is limited, are being
forced to divert funding from valuable programs, to comply with
NCLB. This contributes to many teachers leaving the school because
of the problems caused by NCLB, which is in direct contravention
of IDEA and creates a feeling for some children that they are
destined for a lifetime of inferiority. Pasena stated that students
become frustrated with the testing, especially children with special
needs, and that it is unfair for students with severe cognitive
disabilities to take the same test as gifted students. She stated
that federal law should support the education of children instead
of hurting them. Copies of all of the testimonies may be found
at www.niea.org.
A July 12 oversight hearing
on transportation issues in Indian country, by the Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs, showed, that under a new BIA funding formula,
only about one-fourth of the 562 federally recognized tribes have
updated a significant portion of their roads inventory and, according
to BIA representative Jerry Gidner's testimony, a number of tribes
''may have seen a reduction ...''
The Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs held hearings on crime in Indian country,
in June. Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan called the increase in
rapes, murders, gang shootings and other brazen crimes in recent
years “unbelievable” and said it is Congress' responsibility to
fix it. “We must find a way. This must stop,” Dorgan said, as
tribal leaders testified to the committee about their frustrations
with the Bureau of Indian Affairs police and the Justice Department,
which is responsible for major crimes on reservations. Tribal
leaders said the problem of violent crime has grown worse with
the rise of methamphetamine use, and is exacerbated by the lack
of police and confusing law enforcement jurisdictions that remain
from a century of patchwork legislative action by Congress. One
of the problems is that with isolated, and often very large, checkerboard
reservations of intermixed Indian and non-Indian land, it is often
difficult to know who has jurisdiction, and that is further complicated
by who the alleged perpetrator may be. One proposal is to give
tribes the ability to police all crimes on their land. Cross deputization
of law enforcement officers has often been helpful in minimizing
the jurisdictional problems. Recently Justice Department officials
have moved further with this approach. For example, a program
started in Colorado by U.S. Attorney Troy Eid deputizes state,
local and tribal officers to enforce federal law on Indian reservation.
An important part of the problem is that there are a small number
of officers patrolling vast areas of land. Funding for more officers
and equipment would help to overcome this difficulty. At hearings
in late October, members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee
told victims of sexual assault that Congress will try to help
decrease violent crimes against women on reservations. Senator
Dorgan said he will introduce legislation this year to try reduce
jurisdictional confusion as to whether state, federal or tribal
police can respond when a violent crime is reported.
During Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs hearing on tribal casino gaming. June 28. Sen.
Byron Dorgan (D-ND), chairman of the committee, offered a ''discussion
draft'' of a bill that would further regulate Class III gaming
through amendment to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
Indian organization and tribal gaming organization representatives
testifying at the hearing all opposed the proposed amendment.
The House of Representatives, June 26, defeated an amendment
to the Interior Department appropriations bill that sought to
prohibit the department from expending funds to process gaming
applications under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The amendment,
offered by Rep. Charles Dent (R-PA), would have frozen applications
under IGRA's land claims exception clause, restored lands exceptions,
initial reservation exception and Section 20 two-part determinations.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, in
a June 22 letter, ordered Florida governor Charlie Crist to
negotiate a Class III compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida
within 60 days, or the tribe would be allowed to offer slots and
other high-level gaming under department regulations.
The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration said during mid September that
the Squaxin Tribe does not have permission to kill seals that
interfere with their fishing, an issue that was raised after
an unusual number of harbor seals washed up dead, 17 in the August
and September, in southern Puget Sound, that had been shot or
showed signs of head, neck and body trauma.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published new
rules in the Federal Register, July 13, requiring proof
of citizenship for persons enrolling or reenroling in programs,
and not accepting documentation from most tribes as proof of citizenship.
This summer, for the first time, the BIA was offering
Building Tribal Energy Capacity Grants to tribes to develop
and obtain the management and technical capacity to develop energy
on tribal lands. The BIA Issued
Model Tribal Probate Code with Guiding Commentary, in late
September.
The Fish and Wildlife Service issued an advanced notice
of a proposed rule, in June, which would extend providing
of eagle parts and feathers to Native Americans for religious
purposes to other birds for which it is illegal, currently, to
posses parts or feathers. For more information go to: http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/intmltr/mbta/mbtandx/html,
or contact Andrea Kirk at: otherfeathers@fws,gov.
In response to reports that crimes against American
Indians by non-Indians are not being investigated and prosecuted
as vigorously as they should be, the BIA and the FBI have set
up a hotline to improve the reporting and investigation of crimes
on tribal land in Oklahoma. Serious crimes, such as sexual
assaults, in Indian country in Oklahoma can be reported at: (877)658-7423
(877-OK-TRIBE). The Department of Justice
announced, September 14, that 10 tribal sites have been selected
to serve as pilot communities as part of the department's Amber
(America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert in Indian
Country Initiative, serving as demonstration sites for other
American Indian communities to help expand the program into Indian
county and bridge the gap between tribal communities and state
and regional programs across the country. The
U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services announced, in September, that almost $3
million in grants is being awarded to
help fight methamphetamine production and use in Oklahoma
to the Osage Nation, the Absentee
Shawnee Tribe, the Chickasaw Nation, the Seminole Nation,
the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control,
the Sequoyah County Sheriff's Office and the Oklahoma Police Chiefs
Training Foundation. the grants range from $364,194 to $467,618.
Because of lack of funding, jails and lockups
on numerous reservations are in poor condition and overcrowded,
On the Navajo reservation, because of overcrowded and poor,
often unhealthy, jail conditions, all of the more than 1200 persons
sentenced to jail in 2006 were let out early. The Federal
Bureau of Prisons has decided to remove from prison chapel libraries
all books and materials that are not on the bureau’s list of approved
resources. This is particularly likely to impact members of
religious groups not in the heart of the religious mainstream
in the U.S., including followers of Native approaches to spirituality.
As of late September, numerous religious groups and members of
Congress were objecting to the action, which many claim violates
the freedom of religion and establishment of religion clauses
of the First Amendment. The list of resources that the Bureau
of Prisons has approved as part of the Standardized Chapel Library
Project is at: nytimes.com/national.
Written comments are being accepted through
January 14, on a proposed rule for implementing the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA)
that specifies procedures for the disposition of culturally
unidentifiable human remains in the possession or control of museums
or Federal agencies, The proposed rule is available at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/e7-20209.pdf.
Dr. Charles Grim, the director of
the Indian Health Service (HIS), told tribal leaders at the
June 26 meeting of the Direct Service Tribes that he wants
his agency to eliminate disparities within the American Indian
health care system as well as those that exist between tribal
and traditional health care. The IHS announced, in July, that
it has long range plans, pending Congressional funding, to replace
plans to replace Sioux San Hospital in Rapid City, SD with
a new health care center that could cost $67 million. The
option preferred by IHS is to demolish 16 buildings, including
the main hospital building, and put all services in one new 140,000-square-foot
building. A second option would renovate the hospital and dental
clinic and build a smaller new facility. If funded, the time from
design to completion likely would be about four years.
Dr. Charles W. Grim unexpectedly withdrew his
renomination to direct the Indian Health Service
(IHS) for another four years, September 5. Majel Russel,
a Crow graduate of the University of Montana School of Law, class
of 1991 was appointed the Bureau of Indian affairs (BIA) Principal
Deputy Assistant Secretary, in September. Just prior to the
August recess of Congress, the Senate Commitment on Indian
Affairs installed Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, as its vice
chairman. Kevin Gover will become director of the National
Museum of the American Indian on December 2, after the retirement
of inaugural director W. Richard West.
Several federal agencies
were to begin the process of distributing Federal Emergency Management
Agency mobile homes, left over from Hurricane Katrina, to tribes,
in July. The trailers are free to tribes, but transportation,
setup and modification of the southern-climate housing is their
responsibility. Details on the distribution process, as well as
a brief survey of permissible uses for Indian Housing Block Grant
funds in connection with the mobile homes, can be found at the
National Congress of American Indians Web site, www.ncai.org.
The Heritage Emergency National Task Force, a partnership
of 41 national service organizations and federal agencies (including
Heritage Preservation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency)
created to protect cultural heritage from the damaging effects
of natural disasters and other emergencies, has produced a
new collection of handy tools designed especially for libraries,
archives, museums, historic sites, and historic preservation and
arts organizations. The tools are the result of the Task Force's
"Lessons Applied" initiative to develop practical applications
for the lessons from Hurricane Katrina, such as helping cultural
institutions apply for disaster aid and developing relationships
with emergency responders. The new tools are available as free
downloads at www.heritageemergency.org For more information, contact
Mary Rogers, 202-233-0800 or TaskForce@heritagepreservation.org, www.heritagepreservation.org,
or www.neh.gov.
The Department of the
Interior announced, June 13, that it has decided not to withdraw
its approval of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York's Turning
Stone Resort and Casino 14-year-old gaming compact with New York,
and that the gaming facility can will remain open. In early
August, Department of the Interior’s Office of the Special
Trustee for American Indians was looking for more than
45,000 beneficiaries nationwide, who have not claimed inheritances
or interest from tribal land allotments totaling some $60 million.
The beneficiaries eligible for disbursement include 4,000 Navajos.
In July, the BIA announced
that it will move its Alaska
regional office out of Juneau to cut costs, most likely to Anchorage, by Sept. 30.
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians
hosted the first ''Prez on the Rez'' forum Aug. 23, providing
a platform for Democratic Party presidential candidates to tell
about 300 tribal leaders and guests how they will perpetuate the
Native agenda, if elected. Washington state tribes, together
with Indian political experts and urban leaders, have formed a
non-partisan political initiative called Native Vote Washington,
to increase American Indian voter participation in Washington;
second, to inform Washington voters on how candidates for office
stand on Native issues; and third, to recruit more Native people
into running for office and serving in local Democratic, Republican
and Independent parties. Democrat Mary Kim Titla (San Carlos
Apache) formally declared her candidacy with the Federal Elections
Commission as a candidate for Arizona's U.S. Congressional
District 1, in June. Alaska native and Tlingit tribal member
Diane Benson is a candidate on the Democrat ticket for Alaska's
at-large congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Passamaquoddy Tribe has launched a ''Yes on 1'' campaign
to gather support for its racino initiative, which residents
will vote on at a referendum Nov. 6. Question 1 will ask voters:
''Do you want to allow a Maine tribe to run a harness racing track
with slot machines and high-stakes bingo games in Washington County?'' As of late June, California
Indian tribes (most notably the Morongo Band of Mission Indians)
had spent more than $400,000 to support the U.S. House campaign
of state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, in the California 37th
Congressional District.
Federal
Indian Budgets
As of October 1, the congress had not passed
any of the 12 appropriations bills for FY2008, when the FY2008
budget legally goes into effect, but had passed a continuing
resolution to continue all federal spending (with some practical
exceptions, including that virtually no new contracts can be made
until there is an enacted FY2008 budget) until November. As
the President has threatened to veto bills with spending that
he does not approve of, it could be some time before there
is an FY2008 federal budget, and its eventual contents are very
uncertain.
The Community Development
Financial Institutions Fund, of the Treasury Department, in a Notice of Funds Availability for fiscal 2008, published in September,
encouraged Native community development financial institutions
to apply for its general fund rater than for funding from NACA
(Native American CDFI awards), which totaled $26 million in
FY 2007, because, ''While we do anticipate the appropriation
for the NACA Program will go through this year, we are concerned
that the funding will not be in place prior to the general funding
deadline of October 31, 2007.”
The House Appropriations
Committee, on June 7, recommended that Indian Health Services,
for FY 2008, receive $3.0235 billion, compared with the FY2007
level of $2.862 billion and the Administration FY2008 request
of $2.9315 billion. The increases above the administration
request include an additional: $10 million for contract services,
$25 million for the Indian Healthcare Improvement Fund, $3 million
for contract support costs, $5 million for the loan repayment
program and $21.6 million for the Facilities account. The committee
recommended $34 million for the Urban Health program, which the
administration had zeroed out. $35 million was recommended for
methamphetamine activities, $15 million in HIS and $20 million
in the BIA.
On June21, the Senate
Appropriations Committee authorized a $5 million increase in funding
for Native language and restoration programs, less than a month
after a $3 million increase approved by the House Appropriations
Committee.
As of October, Johnson
O’Malley (JOM) Education funding, which 1inh FY1994 had
been at $24 million, and after two years of the White House
trying to cut it entirely had been reduced to $16 million in
FY1996, was currently proposed by the House of Representatives
at $16.7 and the Senate at $14 million.
In
the Courts
Lower
Federal Courts
The Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals held in Williams v. Gover, June 20, that the
Mooretown Rancheria in California has the power to determine who
is a member of a tribe, and this power is subject to the plenary
power of Congress, so that plaintiffs who were reclassified by
the tribe from full to adoptee membership, cannot suit the BIA
to restore their full membership,
The United States Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit Court ruled, September 13, in Navajo Nation
v. United States (2006-5059) that Navajo Nation can recover
money damages, under the trust doctrine, for the Secretary of
the Interior’s breach of trust in secretly undermining the Navajo
Nation’s position in lease negotiations with Peabody Coal in 1984.
The Navajo Nation lost a first attempt, via the U.S. Court of
Claims, in the Supreme Court in U.S. v Navajo Nation, 445 US 535,
in 2003. A copy of the September 13 decision is available at:
http://www.fedcir.gov/opinions/06-5059.pdf.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, July 17, in MacArthur
v. San Juan County, that a federal court cannot enforce
tribal court injunction in favor of employees of a health clinic
on fee land owned by the state of Utah within the Navajo Reservation,
holding that the Navajo court lack jurisdiction over almost all
of the state’s claims.
A three judge panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of
appeals ruled, September 19, in Miner Electric, Inc and
Russel Miner V Mscogee (Creek) Nation that the Muskogee
Nation is immune from suit challenging the nation’s authority
to apply civil forfeiture laws against a vehicle parked in the
Nation’s casino parking lot belonging to a non-Indian, who had
pled guilty in tribal court to disorderly conduct and possession
of a controlled substance.
The
1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled en bank, June 20, that the
Interior Department has authority to take 31 acres
of land into trust for the Narragansett
Indian Tribe under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act
(IRA), affirming the Narragansetts' sovereignty over those acres, and holding that the IRA does not limit federal recognition to tribes
that were recognized in 1934. The court held that while
the Narragansetts' 1,800-acre settlement
lands are subject to state jurisdiction, under the Rhode Island
Indian Claims Settlement Act, the state will have no authority
over the 31 acres, which are under federal and tribal authority,
or any other land the tribe may acquire and Interior may take
into trust
A decision by The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals,
on August 9, ruled that the tribes in Maine have no sovereign
claim to regulatory authority on the rivers in Maine, holding
that the Maine Department of environmental Protection (DEP) had
authority to regulate water quality on all Maine waterways. Previously
the Maine tribes had regulatory power over water quality within
their own boundaries.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, in early July,
affirmed the jurisdiction and a discrimination verdict of close
to $1 million by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court and the
tribal appeals court, in favor of tribal members, Ronnie and
Lila Long, owners of the Long Family Land and Cattle Company Inc.,
who claimed they were discriminated against by the Plains Commerce
Bank, formerly the Bank of Hoven, when it withdrew a promised
loan to them based on the fact that they were tribal members.
The longs claimed that they lost nearly 500 head of cattle in
the harsh winter of 1996 - '97 because the loan was withdrawn
by the bank.
A panel of the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided, 2-1 December 11, to allow
limited coalbed methane (CBM) development in southeast Montana's
Powder River Basin section bordering the Northern Cheyenne
Indian Reservation. The Northern
Cheyenne Tribe had been against the encroaching development of
CBM mines surrounding the borders of their land, citing environmental
and cultural concerns. In 2005, U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson
said the Environmental Impact Statement had not analyzed the impact
of coalbed methane mines sufficiently, and ordered the Bureau
of Land Management to prepare a coalbed methane environmental
impact statement (EIS), but permitted the BLM to allow up to 500
wells while EIS was being prepared, but drilling was enjoined
pending the outcome of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe's June 2005
emergency appeal.
A panel of the first Circuit court of Appeals
ruled, in September, that a group of Passamaquoddy Indians
can move forward with a lawsuit they hope will stop a liquefied
natural gas terminal development on tribal land, overturning
a District court judge’s dismissal of the complaint, last November.
A 1st Circuit Court of
Appeals panel majority, in late August, reinstated a $301,000
jury award to a Narragansett Indian tribe member whose ankle was
twisted and broken by a Rhode Island state trooper during a raid
on the tribe's smoke shop four years ago. The decision
has been remanded to the district court,
The U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia threw out tossed out a lawsuit,
July 3, by Citizens Exposing Truth About Casinos (CETAC), an anti-Indian
casino group, removing the last legal challenge to the Nottawaseppi
Huron Band of Potawatomi building its long-planned FireKeepers
Casino near Battle Creek, MI, expected to cost $270 million.
CETAC had challenged the Interior Department's decision, in 2002,
to take 79 acres of land into trust as an initial reservation
for the tribe to build a casino and conduct Class III gaming under
the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The court affirmed that
the property qualifies as an initial reservation.
District Court Judge Johnson for the District of New Mexico,
ruled in Southern Ute Tribe v. Leavitt (Civ. No,
05-988 (DNM)), June 15, that the Indian Health Services can
only decline a contract proposal for one of the narrow, enumerated,
reasons in the statute, and could not decline a contract because
a tribe refuses to wave its right to contract support costs.
A District Court Judge in South Dakota ruled in Cheyenne
River Sioux Tribe v, Kempthorne, et al, July 10, that
a tribe’s proposed contract amendment and Annual Funding Agreement
are deemed approved, as a mater of law, in the absence of the
Secretary of the Interior demonstrating the validity of a decision
not to approve with clear and convincing evidence. The case
involved the tribe’s effort to amend its Indian-Self Determination
and Education Assistance Act contract.
District Judge Lawrence
Piersol, on August 6, allowed the emergency room at the Wagner,
SD Indian Health Service (IHS) Hospital to close, reversing
his September 2006 ruling in favor of the Yankton Sioux Tribe,
which had asked for a restraining order to stop the IHS from removing
emergency room services at the hospital and change it to an urgent
care facility. The Yankton Sioux Tribe has fought since 1994 to
keep the hospital, clinic and emergency room open.
After the Osage Nation
filed a federal suit, in 2006, over an Oklahoma Tax Commission
rule aimed at cracking down on cigarettes being sold at tribal
retailers with a cheaper tax stamp, a federal judge ordered the
Osages and the state to follow their compact and settle the matter
by arbitration. Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation and the
Tax Commission went to arbitration on a related cigarette tax
rule. The first rule has been withdrawn, and a decision
on the arbitration was expected late summer or early fall. The
rules were passed last year by the Oklahoma Tax Commission to
prevent tribally licensed tobacco stores from improperly selling
cigarettes with a 6-cent tax stamp that is meant for products
sold near Oklahoma borders. State officials complained that some
tribally licensed stores were shipping cigarettes with the 6-cent
stamps to other areas, particularly around Tulsa. Nontribal retailers
must use tobacco stamps that cost $1.03 per pack. Tribes with
a tobacco compact pay an 86-cent rate, while tribes without compacts
pay for a 77-cent tobacco stamp on each pack of cigarettes.
The San Juan Citizens Alliance and
Dine' Citizens Against Ruining our Environment filed
suit, July 13,
in federal court in Denver, against the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement,
claiming that in approving two permits for Navajo Mine, on the Navajo Reservation, the agency and its western
regional director, Al Klein, violated federal laws when renewing
the mine's permit in September 2004 and approving a revised
permit in October 2005. The complaint holds that the agency did
not provide adequate public notice and failed to fully analyze
potential environmental consequences as required by the National
Environmental Policy Act. The mine covers more than 13,400 acres
on tribal land and produces coal for both the Four Corners Power
Plant and the San Juan Power Plant, which provide electricity
for customers in New Mexico, Arizona and other parts of the Southwest.
The permit revision allows the mine to expand by 3,800 acres,
but that has not yet occurred.
In May, the Madariaga family, disenrolled
by their nation, filed a lawsuit in federal court, in Los angeles,
against leaders of the Pechanga tribe of California, including
the chairman Mark Macarro, demanding to be reinstated.
Over the years, the Pechanga tribe has thrown out nearly a fourth
of its membership. Other tribes across the nation have also used
similar arguments to defend expelling thousands of members. Nearly
all of the tribes that have done this have casinos. While tribes
in New York, Rhode Island and Nevada have kicked out some members,
the purging has been most intense in California’s gaming tribes,
where 3,000 people have been ousted since 1999.
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla
Indians and the California Fair Political Practices Commission
ended their lawsuit, June
29, with the tribe agreeing to publicly report donations to
politicians, dropping its claim that it's exempt from state campaign
disclosure laws.
The North Dakota Board
of Higher Education and the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA) attained a settlement of their lawsuit, in October,
under which the University of North Dakota has until November
30th, 2010 to obtain approval from both the Spirit Lake Tribe
and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe if it wants to keep its "Fighting
Sioux" nickname, or the school will have choose a new
name and logo.
The Nez Perce Tribe
and federal officials officially signed a settlement, in May,
over Snake River water rights. Under terms of the agreement, the
Nez Perce agreed to drop most of their claims to water in the
Snake River basin in exchange $95.8 million, 11,000 acres of land
now managed by the Bureau of Land Management and salmon conservation
measures, including requirements for water releases from dams
to aid migrating fish. The agreement provided for congressional
funding of three trust funds totaling $95.8 million, including:
About $60.1 million in a water and fisheries fund to be used for
improving fish habitat, water resource development and cultural
preservation. A water supply fund with $23 million to be used
primarily to improve water supplies and delivery and sewage projects
in tribal communities. About $12.7 million designated solely for
fish habitat and restoration in the Salmon and Clearwater River
basins. Rules limit the tribe somewhat in how the money can be
spent, including a requirement that the nation draw up a financial
plan for using the funds, in advance of any of the monies being
released. Officials say it could take at least six months to craft
and submit to federal officials a plan suitable for approval.
The tribe's governing board hosted the first meeting to develop
a financial plan, on June 25, and are surveying tribal members
for their views.
The Winner School District,
of Winner, SD, and the American Indian community reached an agreement,
in June, setting a class-action lawsuit against the school district.
The suit, that included all American Indian students attending
the Winner district school system, charged the school district
with improper disciplinary actions against the American Indian
students in middle and high school. The settlement agreement will
be in effect until the district complies with the terms for four
consecutive years, under the supervision of the federal district
court. The agreement becomes effective when the parties sign a
consent decree and when any objections are absolved. While not
admitting any improper action, the school district agreed that:
School officials will not require students to write statements
that can be used to prosecute them in court. The district will
hire a full-time ombudsman, nominated by the collective American
Indian community, to serve as a liaison between American Indian
families and school officials. An educational professional will
work with school officials and American Indian families to set
benchmarks to improve graduation rates, reduce levels of suspension
and school-based arrests, and improve the overall climate for
American Indian students. A committee made up of school officials
and parents will review all disciplinary incidents every quarter
for racial disparities and if the disparities are found without
explanation, the committee will recommend policy changes. The
Interwest Equity Assistance Center, funded by the U.S. Department
of Education, will provide trainings for Winner students on conflict
resolution and training for teachers on unconscious racial bias
and educational equity. The schools will include American Indian
themes in the mainstream curriculum, in-school activities and
after-school activities. Additionally, the district will offer
American Indian culture, history and language class in the high
school, taught by an American Indian instructor.
A settlement was agreed
upon, September 12, between two Paute parents, backed by
the Bishop Paiute tribe, supported by the ACLU, and the Bishop
Union Elementary School District designed to end what families
claimed was a pattern of discrimination that was driving Paiute
children away from the school system. An investigation by
the ACLU of the school’s records on suspensions and expulsions
from 2000-2006 found that American Indian students, who make up
about 17% of the student body, were 67% of those punished for
subjective offenses like “defiance” or “being disrespectful/argumentative.”
The review of school records found students were suspended for
minor infractions, such as dress code violations, having candy
in class, chewing gum and being late, although the state’s education
code establishes suspension as a last resort, Steele said. Repeated
suspension forced some of these students to attend continuation
school, meant for students unable to meet the standards of the
traditional school system, depriving them of educational opportunities.
In the 2005-2006 school year, half of the American Indian students
in the sixth grade were in the continuation school, as well as
seven of the 26 American Indians in the eighth grade. The settlement
expunges from student records suspensions that were in violation
of state rules, and calls for diversity training for teachers,
students and administrators. The district also will keep discipline
records available for ACLU’s review. Because the plaintiffs alleged
that improper police actions were part of the problem, part of
the settlement is that a police officer will no longer assigned
to patrol the schools. Shortly after the settlement, the complaining
families stated that the situation was improving. And the ACLU
reported that suspensions had decreased significantly, and the
district had begun to implement a cultural awareness program.
The parties in two long-standing
Indian water rights disputes are one step closer to settling their
cases, now that Taos Pueblo has signed an agreement to share
its San Juan-Chama Project water with four other pueblos. Taos
Pueblo agreed, in June, to take less than the 2,990 acre-feet
of San Juan-Chama Project water originally set aside by the federal
government for resolution of its water-rights claims with the
town of Taos and Taos Valley acequia groups, allowing some of
the water will go to the pueblos of Pojoaque, Tesuque, Nambe and
San Ildefonso to fulfill a settlement agreement in the Aamodt
water-rights case in the Pojoaque Basin. The agreement needs
to be approved by Congress, which must also provide funding to
implement them.
State
and Local Courts
New York State Supreme
Court (a lower court) Justice Dennis McDermott ruled, in
June, and was upheld by a panel of state appellate judges, that
the Oneida Indian Nation of New York could not drop a series
of lawsuits against 22 municipal governments in the two counties
to prevent them from foreclosing on the nation's 17,000 acres
of the nation’s lands for unpaid property taxes. The case
stems directly from the 2005 City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian
Nation of New York decision, in which the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that the Oneida could not
assert sovereignty over reservation land illegally taken from
it in years past. After U.S. District Judge David Hurd subsequently
ruled that the counties had no authority to seize land from a
federally recognized Indian nation, the Oneida assumed the issue
settled, and moved to drop its litigation against the municipalities.
But the New York appellate judges disagreed, holding, ''Public
policy favors a resolution of these issues, especially considering
that the federal decision is being appealed and therefore remains
uncertain.'' Further, the judges stated, ''Federal court rulings
on issues of state law are not binding on state courts.'' The
decision will be challenged on the ground that Congress alone
has the authority ''To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,
and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.''
The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled,
Sept. 13, that the Sisseton-Wahpeton tribal court has no jurisdiction
over a non-Indian father or his daughter, reversing an earlier
ruling by a state judge who said the tribe could remove the girl
from her father's custody. The father’s former wife is a tribal
member, but the court decided that the Indian Child Welfare Act
(ICWA) does not apply to the father or his oldest daughter, because
she is not a ward of the tribal court as neither she nor her father
live on the reservation.
The Lower Elwha Klallam of Washington
completed a settlement of its law suites in County Superior
Court with local public agencies over the failed Hood Canal
Bridge graving yard project in Port Angeles that disrupted
tribal graves, allowing the tribe to begin reburying the remains
of more than 330 ancestors.
Tribal
Courts
A Majority of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s Supreme
Court, at the end of August, called for a public reprimand
of the tribe’s National Council, with public notice on the
council’s actions to be put on display and posted in all Creek
Nation buildings, communities and headquarters by Friday, Sept.
7, because of the legislative body’s “disrespect” to the tribal
court and the Creek people, on the grounds that the legislature
had violated the tribal constitution in overriding the Chief Justice’s
veto of its revised version of the 2007 budget, and in the eliminating
of positions in the tribe’s government. As tribal council
minutes show that not all councilors voted to override the veto,
the posting is to show the voting record. The tribal judges expressed concern over the dissension between
the tribe’s governmental branches, saying, “Both branches must
work together to complete the budget process with no single branch
having more power than any other branch,” For more information,
including a link to a PDF of the court’s decision, go to Tulsa
World, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070901_1_A13_hTheo76105.
The Hopi Tribe’s Appellate Court,
in August, reinstated ousted Chairman Ben Nuvamsa, who
was removed by the Tribal Council after his February election
because he supposedly did not meet residency requirements. The
court’s ruling, that the council’s action was unconstitutional,
should end a dispute that led to a temporary type of tribal government
since May, with Nuvamsa running the government under a temporary
court order granting him powers.
States,
Localities, and Indian Nations
The relationship between the State of South Dakota
and its tribes in applying the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
has improved over the last five years. The changes began in 2004, when the implementation of a
governor's task force came up with a list of issues and recommendations
the state and tribes could improve upon when dealing with ICWA
and child custody cases. With assistance from the National Resource
Center, a 38-member Collaborative Circle was formed with tribes,
state social services officials and other experts. Each tribe
has two representatives, and all seven regions of the state social
service area are represented. The circle gathers quarterly,
while an executive committee meets on a monthly basis. Other states
and tribes have similar organizations to improve cooperation,
but the circle and the protocol is unique in the country.
For the first time in South
Dakota history, people wishing to become lawyers in the state
will have to be educated on the basics of American Indian law.
A South Dakota Supreme Court rule went into effect, in July,
requiring the State Bar exam to include an essay question on the
relationship of Indian laws to state and federal laws.
Maine tribal and state representatives
came together, August 20,
for the first meeting of the Tribal-State Work Group, which
is examining possible changes to the legislation governing the
Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, with a January deadline
for proposed amendments.
The Pala Band of Mission
Indians of north San Diego County and the United Auburn
Indian Community located in the Sierra Nevada foothills of
northern California, supported by the hotel workers’ union, Unite-Here,
and Bay Meadows Land Co., owner of two thoroughbred racetracks,
are attempting to gain enough signatures to put a referendum
on the California ballot, this November, to overturn new gaming
compacts made by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the
Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno
Indians and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation and Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger and ratified by both houses of the Legislature,
during the summer. Under the new compacts, each of the tribes
would have an increase from its current 2,000 slots, the Morongo
immediately increasing to 5,000 and Pechanga to 3,750 slots. Sycuan
and Agua Caliente each plan to add 1,000 slots within the first
year. Under the new terms, the four tribes would pay 15% percent
of the net gain on additional machines up to 5,000 and 25% for
anything above that amount. The current gaming compact is set
up on a tiered scale, and the fees go as high as $25,000 a year
for each machine in excess of 4,500. In an addition, the four
tribes have agreed to pay an annual $9 million into the state's
Revenue Sharing Trust Fund, which provides money to non-gaming
tribes, doubling their current contribution to the fund. The Pala
and Auburn nations are concerned that additional slot machines
will negatively impact small, Native-owned casinos, especially
if they depend on slot players that flow to their casinos when
the larger venues are busy. Both the California Nations Indian
Gaming Association and the Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian
Nations oppose the proposed ballot measure. On July 24, the Michigan
House Regulatory Reform Committee unanimously approved a gaming
compact between the Gun Lake Tribe and Gov. Jennifer Granholme
for the tribe's proposed gaming and entertainment complex in Allegan
County. A bill that would allow the Penobscot Indian Nation
to operate 400 slot machines at its high stakes bingo game on
tribal land was tabled on the last day of the legislative session
and carried over to the next session in January. The town
of Middleborough, MA voted, July 28, to allow, in their
town the newly federally recognized Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to
build the state's first casino, planned as a $1 billion casino
resort destination.
The Bay Mills Indian Community, the Sault Tribe,
the Little River Band, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa
Indians and the Grand Traverse Band reached a tentative agreement
with the State of Michigan, in September, ending a long
dispute, under which the tribes will regulate hunting, fishing
and plant gathering by their members, under their own regulations,
on millions of acres in Michigan.
At least 11 members
of the Yankton Sioux Tribe who own fee land in the county were
among those not sent invitations, and were barred from entrance,
in August, to a fee land owners meeting at the Charles Mix,
SD County Court House, to discuss issues involved with redrawing
boundary lines for the Yankton Sioux Tribe Reservation. At
issue is an order from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that remanded
the case back to federal District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol
to determine the boundaries of the Yankton Sioux Reservation,
following a 1994 lawsuit by the Yankton Sioux Tribe to stop the
construction of a solid waste dump on what the tribe alleged was
within its reservation boundaries. The state became involved,
asking that the Yankton reservation be diminished because of all
the fee land owned by non-Indians.
Puget Sound tribes and
commercial shellfishermen reached a
$33 million treaty rights settlement,
that was approved by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
in May and by a federal judge in June. The settlement follows
a 1994 federal court ruling entitling the tribes to a share of
shellfish grown on some Washington tidelands.
Under the agreement, the tribes will give up their rights to harvest
shellfish worth $2 million a year from commercial shellfish beds
in the Puget Sound region. In return, they get to split $33 million
in federal and state money to buy and lease tidelands, giving
them rights to take all the shellfish that come under their ownership.
Commercial growers will also pay $500,000 over 10 years to enhance
public tidelands and boost the harvests of clams, oysters and
other shellfish for everyone. The agreement also covers 22 commercial
shellfish beds owned by the state and managed by the Department
of Natural Resources. Recreational beaches, such as state parks,
are not covered.
The State of New Mexico
Children, Youth and Families Department and the Navajo Nation
updated an agreement to better define how they will work together
to help Navajo children who are in foster care. The agreement,
revised after more than 20 years, and authorized by the 1978 federal
Indian Child Welfare Act, includes no dramatic changes, as it
clarifies timelines for the process, better defines each side’s
responsibilities and better explains how they will coordinate
efforts, when the agency puts an Navajo child into custody, and
discusses proper action with the Nation. Under the new agreement,
the state must contact the Navajo Nation within 24 hours by fax
or phone if a child believed to be Navajo enters the foster care
system. A follow-up written notice must be submitted within five
days. The agreement also defines the preferences in care for a
Navajo child either for foster care or adoption as being, in order,
returning the child to the family of origin, placement with a
Navajo family, placement with an Indian family other than Navajo
or placement with a non-Indian family approved by the Navajo Nation.
Osage Nation Principal
Chief Jim Gray sent a letter to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture,
May 22, challenging the state of Oklahoma's authority to enforce
state law and regulations in tribal stores and shops, and
that state consumer protection inspectors have no authority to
enter a tribe-owned store in Fairfax, called Palace of the Osage.
Gray maintains the store lies within the Osage Reservation,
which he asserts includes all of Osage County, where he says only
the tribe's laws apply.
Following a complaint from Judy
Dow, a member of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs,
the Vermont Natural Resources Board issued a stipulated order
to the Intervale Center, on August 6, limiting its composting
operation and use of heavy equipment, to only part of its
approximately 19-acre site, which is on land sacred to the
Abenaki nation, and containing ancestors Indian archaeological
sites, while the company seeks a permit to continue, which
the Abenaki oppose.
South Dakota Governor
Mike Rounds, federal officials and leaders of the states’ Indian
nations met, in July, at the Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Place
near Fort Pierre to discuss issues involving the operation
of Missouri River dams, particularly those related to how the
lingering drought has effected water levels, local water supplies,
recreation, and hydroelectric power production. Participants
included Assistant U.S. Army Secretary John Paul Woodley, representatives
of states along the Missouri River, tribal leaders and U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers Brigadier General Gregg F. Martin.
An agreement aimed at improving
conditions in White Clay Nebraska, a tiny border town to the Pine
ridge Reservation in South Dakota that sells huge amounts of beer
to Pine ridge residents, who cannot buy alcohol on the reservation,
has never been put into effect. The agreement, signed two years
ago by Nebraska’s Attorney General Jon Bruning and Governor Dave
Heineman and the then-president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, allows
tribal police in the Pine Ridge Indian reservation to be deputized
in Nebraska. However, patrols were never begun, and now unused
nearly $200,000 earmarked by Congress to pay for Pine Ridge officers
to patrol the town may be lost.
A bill to create a Commission
on Native American Affairs in Connecticut passed the state House,
June 5, by 124-22, but just after being called to the state Senate
floor for a vote, June 17,the last night of the legislative session,
was withdrawn and effectively killed for the session. The
bill would create an independent Commission on Indian Affairs
to replace the Connecticut Indian Affairs Council, which was formed
in the 1970s but hasn't met since the early 1990s. A joint
subcommittee of the Tennessee Senate and House Government Operations
committee voted 4-1, in August, to abolish the Tennessee Commission
of Indian Affairs.
Since the Maine Legislature
banned the use of the offensive word ''squaw'' six years ago,
36 place names have been changed in compliance. Finding that
there were only two remaining communities not technically in compliance
with the legislation, the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission
filed complaints, July 11, with the Maine Human Rights Commission
against Stockton Springs and Washington County. Stockton Springs
includes an island called Squaw Point, another called Squaw Head
Island, and a Squaw Point Road. The Human Rights Commission will
do an investigation and determine whether the town is in violation.
Then the question is how to enforce the law, though a finding
against the town by the commission might have enough moral-political
effect to cause the town to change the names, on its own. Maine
tribal leaders and state officials meet at the annual Assembly
of Governors and Chiefs, July 19, to review the past year's
accomplishments and set the agenda for the coming year's goals.
The New Mexico State
Legislature Indian Affairs Committee held hearings in 3 Navajo
communities, in July, to get input from Navajos on matters
of interest to them. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy
District, of New Mexico, board of directors, in August, was in
the process of conferring with the six American Indian pueblos
within the district on the best ways to movie forward with election
reform, being undertaken to overcome allegations of voter
fraud, electioneering and ballot tampering, in past elections.
Property owners within the district elect seven members to the
board - three of whom serve two-year terms and four of whom serve
four-year terms. The board has suggested election reforms that
include a switch to paper ballots, moving oversight of elections
from the board to the secretary of state's office, implementing
a voter registration system and requiring voters to present identification.
All of this is being discussed with the pueblos, and the public
in the district. In June, New Mexico tribes were asking the
state Racing Commission to add more specific language to a proposed
rule, to detail the procedures by which the commission will carry
out legally required consultation with tribes on its decision
making.
The Seneca Nation of
New York began sending bills to the State of New York for $28,000
(a toll of $1 per car) for a disputed stretch of the New York
state Thruway which crosses the tribe’s reservation, since
April, when the tribal Council rescinded a 1954 right of way
agreement that allowed the state to build on the reservation.
The Senecas said the pact, which paid the tribe $75,000, was
invalid because it never received proper federal approval.
Now tribal leaders want to negotiate with the state for additional
compensation, but said in June that no talks have been set.
Tribal representatives and leaders and about 100 representatives
from U.S. state commissions on Indian affairs and state government
appointed commissioners from across the nation met at Lake Tahoe,
NV, September 9-13, for the 58th annual Governors' Interstate
Indian Council meeting and conference to address local and
national Native issues. Presentations and dscussion focused on
the most current issues facing American Indians, including methamphetamine
addictions, law enforcement and homeland security; state recognition
mechanisms for tribes; and an update on the 2010 U.S. Census.
The GIIC has been an ongoing effort on behalf of several state
governments to address common Native interests, since Minnesota
Gov. Luther Youngdahl expressed concerned about federal government
involvement in Indian affairs in 1947, related to the Termination
movement. As an alternative, he recommended that American Indians
work together to address common concerns. In 1949, Youngdahl organized
a meeting with other states with substantial Indian populations
to send delegates to a meeting in St. Paul. One year later, in
an official meeting of the National Governors' Association, the
GIIC was made a permanent organization by resolution, according
to the GIIC Web site. Over the past 45 years, the organization
has worked through state governments to address issues and concerns
of Native nations.
Leaders of Maryland's
Indian tribes were critical of state officials, during a ceremony,
in August, to welcome the crew of a boat retracing Capt. John
Smith's 1608 voyage on the Chesapeake Bay, saying they were upset
about not being officially recognized by the state even though
they were “exploited” for state-endorsed events.
The Prairie Island Indian
Community, in September, donated $120,000 from its from the Treasure
Island Casino to six flood-damaged communities in southeastern
Minnesota, of Winona, Goodview, Stockton, Rushford, St. Charles
and Minnesota City, each of whom received from $10,000-$20,000.
Since 1994, the Prairie Island Indian Community has donated
more than 14 million dollars to a variety of civic and nonprofit
organizations.
As of June, the Fort Belknap tribes
were planning to ask Congress for $240 million and nearly 55,000
acres of land as part of a water rights settlement bill being
drafted by the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes and the state.
The federal funding would help pay for an ethanol plant and a
new irrigation system that would reach 30,000 additional acres.
The Skokomish Indian Tribe
reached an agreement, in August, with the Washington State Parks
and Recreation Commission to swap land, the state receiving
11 acres that constitute the Minerva Beach recreational vehicle
resort, that the Skokomish nation is purchasing, so that the state
can provide more camping space on Hood Canal, and the tribe to
obtain 30 acres from from Potlatch State Park, some of it for
construction of an access road to an area where the tribe plans
to build housing, and 34 acres of tideland a mile southeast of
the park's day use area near the elbow of Hood Canal. Park officials
valued the new tribal land at $818,000 and the RV park, which
includes 70 trailer hookup sites, primitive camping places and
a small store and laundry service, at $750,000. To make up the
difference, the tribe agreed to allow public access to the tidelands
while retaining shell fishing rights.
The Penobscot Indian
Nation's now defunct mail order pharmacy was slapped with a $500,000
penalty, in May, by the Maine Board of Pharmacy for the
illegal activities of former employees surrounding sales of
illegal Internet prescriptions.
Santo Domingo Pueblo
will gain 1700 acres of traditional land adjacent to its current
boundaries, on a deal reached in October, after 17 years
of negotiations, under which the New Mexico Land Office will
exchange land of equal value with the Bureau of Land Management,
who will give three sections of the land it receives from New
Mexico to the Pueblo.
The State of New Mexico,
in its first move shut down bars bordering reservations that have
a history of serving liquor to intoxicated people, was proceeding,
in late September, to revoke the liquor licenses of six establishments
in Farmington and Bloomfield.
Tribal
Developments
The first-ever World Clean Energy Awards
were presented at the Faktor 4-Festival in Basel, Switzerland,
June 15 to nine organizations representing countries from around
the world. The Intertribal Council on Utility Policy was recognized
with a Special Award for Courage for its work that established
the first commercial wind power generation on any reservation
with the 750-kilowatt turbine on Rosebud in addition to a plan,
Environmental justice Intertribal Wind Power, that would
create wind power energy for the western United States, expanding
wind power to 3,000 megawatts from tribally owned power turbines
on reservations across the northern Great Plains by 2015. The
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was honored by the Environmental
Protection Agency, in July, with its Clean Air Excellence
Award as a national, innovative leader in the effort to improve
air quality and the environment. The Cherokee Nation oversees
five stationary air-monitoring stations as well as a mobile air-monitoring
station, the largest tribally owned and operated system of its
kind in the United States. It also provides technical assistance
to the 42 tribes that comprise the membership of the Inter-Tribal
Environmental Council (ITEC).
Climate change appears
to have impacted the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
this summer, causing them to cancel their wild rice harvest
for the first time in history because record low water levels
had dramatically reduced the rice crop. Wildfires that destroyed
thousands of homes and businesses and forced the evacuation of
over 1 million people (including thousands of tribal members)
in seven counties if Southern California, in late October, as
of October 25, had burned more than 500,000 acres of land on the
Yuina, Rincon, La Jolla, San Pasqual and Pala reservations, and
8,960 acres on the Capitan Grande, Mesa Grande, Santa Ysabel,
Barona, Jamul and Inaja-Cosmit reservations. At least 41 homes
on the La Jolla reservation have burned along with 65 on the Rincon
reservation and five on the Yuina reservation, and there has been
considerable damage to infrastructure. Across San Diego County,
gaming tribes are continuing to assist those whose reservations
are being devastated by wildfires. Neighboring tribes were providing
assistance, including putting up evacuees in their hotels.
Serious wildfires in the west, this summer have also taken
a toll on Indian reservations. The Skyland fire, which
started in mid-July on the southeastern edge of Glacier National
Park wildfire, that had consumed more than 40,000 acres of
timber and grassland, as of August 14, moved into the Blackfeet
reservation and burned nearly 10,000 acres. It is only one
of 23 large wildfires in Montana and Idaho that had not been contained
as of that time. Meanwhile, the extreme weather that crated flooding
and other damage in the Midwest and west, this spring, also impacted
Indian nations. A preliminary assessment of storm damage to
public structures in Valley and Musselshell counties and on the
Fort Peck Indian Reservation, in Montana came to about $226,600,
which is not enough to qualify for federal aid.
A number of lawsuits
and complaints against lenders who refuse to offer mortgages on
Indian reservations is increasing the number of mortgages available.
As of early June, seven lenders had been suited. A number of
these cases were brought by the National Community Reinvestment
Coalition (NCRC), including a suit against NovaStar Mortgage
of Orange, CA, for allegedly redlining reservations, which the
company is contesting. Previously NCRC filed a civil rights complaint
against Aegis, based in Houston, TX, with the Department of Housing
and Urban Development, alleging violations of the Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988, saying the lender had a policy of not
making mortgages on Indian reservations, among other allegedly
discriminatory behavior. The case was settled with an agreement,
under which the lender paid $475,000 in damages. Provision H of
the settlement states: ''Improved real property shall not be ineligible
to secure a residential mortgage loan solely because it is located
on Native American tribal lands.'' In addition, Aegis agreed to
review its employee training to make sure its employees understand
and follow the provisions of the settlement. It also has agreed
to remove a $60,000 minimum property value requirement, which
NCRC alleges was discriminatory against American Indians. Aegis'
executive vice president, Michael Balog stated, ''We have agreed
to clarify our underwriting guidelines to remove any perceived
barriers to equal access to credit for all eligible borrowers.''
In 2006, Aegis was the 20th largest subprime mortgage lender in
the country, according to National Mortgage News, making $8.5
billion in loans. According to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act filings
it made with the government, in 2005, Aegis funded $51 million
in loans to American Indians or Alaska Natives, making it 77th
in the country. In addition, NCRC has filed fair lending complaints
with HUD against four other lenders: Guaranteed Rate of Chicago;
Franklin Bank Corp. of Houston; ComUnity of Morgan Hill, Calif.;
and Hyperion Capital of Lake Oswego, Ore. ComUnity made $37 million
in mortgages to Indians in 2005, ranking in the top 100 lenders.
Hyperion made $4.5 million in Indian mortgages in 2005, while
Guaranteed made $2.3 million in mortgages. NCRC ''alleges that
the lenders intentionally structured their underwriting to exclude
Native American tribal communities and/or persons with disabilities.''
It said Guaranteed lends in 20 states and is the largest independent
mortgage banker in the Midwest. Franklin lends in all 50 states
and has origination offices in 19 of them, the nonprofit said.
ComUnity lends in 31 states and is one of the top 100 mortgage
lenders in the country, it said, and Hyperion lends in California,
Washington and Oregon. In a separate case, last year, Ameriquest
Mortgage of Califonia settled an abusive lending charge brought
by the Securities and Exchange Commission, acknowledging its lending
practices on reservations had been cited. That settlement, for
$325 million, was one of the largest ever entered into for allegedly
abusive lending practices.
Gang activity on reservations
has continued to rise over the last five years, particularly in
the Northeast, Southeast'and in Oklahoma. One Indian community
that has seen a steady rise of gang involvement over the past
two years is Anadarko, OK, a city that is a part of seven
overlapping tribal jurisdictions: Kiowa, Comanche, Apache Tribe
of Oklahoma, Fort Sill Apache, Wichita and Affiliated Tribes,
Caddo and Western Delaware. Christopher Grant, a retired commander
of the Rapid City, S.D.-area gang task force, said that the major
community factors for those who join gangs include high degrees
of poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, limited law enforcement
and a denial that gangs exist. But the most important factor as
to why young people join gangs is a lack of parental involvement.
Gang activity contributes to violent attacks, which Native
Americans suffer 2.6 times as often as other Americans, with 32.2%
of American Indians over 123 years of age suffering at least one
assault in their life times. The rate of violence against Native
Americans per 1000 is: 81 in rural areas, 111 in suberbs and 130
in urban areas. In a recent Bureau of Indian Affairs survey,
70 percent of tribal law enforcement agencies indicated that meth
is the greatest public safety threat to their reservation.
Suicide epidemic on
the Rosebud Indian Reservation largely stems from broken relationships
and violence against women, according to two victims and the
head of a women's shelter that's helping them, as reported by
Carson Walker, “Violence against women prompts many Rosebud Reservation
suicides,” Indian Country Today, Posted: September 19, 2007, http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415742.
(For resources on suicide, see the section at the end of the Media
Notes Section, before Useful Web Sites).
Makah tribal leaders promised to prosecute
the five tribal members "who took it on themselves to hunt
a whale," September 8. The men were arrested by the Coast
Guard after killing a 30-foot gray whale which they harpooned
and shot with a high-powered rifle in the Strait of Juan de Fuca,
about a mile east of Cape Flattery and two miles south of the
Canadian border.
The Lummi Indian Nation of Washington
became first tribe in the United States to have its updated multi-hazard
mitigation plan submitted to and approved by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, in August. The approval makes the Lummi
eligible to apply for grants related to fire management assistance,
hazard mitigation, pre-disaster mitigation and flood mitigation
through May 30, 2010, under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief
and Emergency Assistance Act.
The California office of
the Indian Health Service (IHS) reached agreement with
the Tubatulabal Tribe of California, to invest $92,150 in water
well and wastewater improvements on two Tubatulabal land allotments
in Kern Valley. To complete the water rights settlement
of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain tribes of Colorado (while
providing water to other users, including Navajo Nation) the
last construction, long stalled, of the Animas-La Plata water
project is expected to be finished this fall, with the completion
of a dam and a pumping station.
Members of the Citizen
Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma voted, August 16 to pass the constitutional
revision that will completely change the structure of the Citizen
Potawatomi Nation government from an existing five-member Business
Committee to a 16-member Legislature. The new constitution
establishes a three-branch government that will provide checks
and balances for each branch. The revision also removes the U.S.
Interior Department Secretary's authority to veto proposed changes
in the CPN constitution. In addition, the existing Business Committee
was given until Aug. 26 to finalize eight new legislative districts
outside of Oklahoma, allowing tribal members outside the state
to vote (As the Comanche Nation has done, and the Navajo Nation
has been considering). New legislator elections must be held within
120 days for 11 legislators - three in Oklahoma and one from each
of the new eight districts.
The Nipmuc tribe of
Massachusetts, which won federal recognition in 2002, only
to have that decision overturned by the Bush administration. had
seven acres of land recently returned by a descendant of one
of the settlers involves in taking the land 300 years ago. Without
those acres, the Nipmuc reservation is the smallest in North America,
as well as one of its first, with only four and one-half acres.
Decades after their
land was flooded by the U.S. government for the Oahe reservoir
on the Missouri River, more than 100 individual members of the
Standing Rock Sioux tribe are getting payments for their loss,
by the tribe, which is contributing about $2.5 million from revenue
at its Prairie Knights casino. In the mid-1980s, a joint federal-tribal
advisory committee decided the Indians had been underpaid for
their land, and in 1992, Congress set up federal trusts for
the Standing Rock tribe and the Three Affiliated Tribes on the
Fort Berthold reservation near the Garrison Dam. Since the perpetual
trusts are used for education, economic development, social welfare
and other tribal needs, and have never been available to individuals
who suffered direct losses, the tribe decided that it should act
to fill the need.
Jacqueline Left Hand
Bull-Delahunt a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has been chosen
as the first American Indian woman to head the National Spiritual
Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States. Members of the
Baha’I faith have been strong supporters of spiritual tradition,
and workers for community harmony, on a number of reservations.
Controversial ethnic studies professor Ward
Churchill was fired by the University of Colorado, July 23,
over allegations of academic misconduct involving plagiarism and
falsification. Churchill says he will suit the University.
Federal authorities raided two Wichita offices
of an unrecognized American Indian tribe, the Kaweah Indian Nation,
in September, arresting the group’s tribal leader following
a multi-state investigation into an alleged scam to sell tribal
memberships to undocumented workers with the promise the documents
would protect them from deportation.
The University of Illinois, in the name
of free speech, lifted a ban on the private use of the Chief
Illinwek logo in the homecoming parade.
The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic
Development at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, has this
years award winners in Honoring Contributions in the Governance
of American Indian Nations - Honoring Nations, for short –
with explanation at: www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/index.htm.
Economic
Developments
Three principle Native American financial institutions,
the Native American Bank, Sycuan Funds
of California and Seacrest Investment Management of South Dakota,
agreed, in August, to form a marketing alliance to bring the full
range of financial services to Indian country.
The sub-prime mortgage scandal has now reduced mortgage lending
in Indian country, as the closing of Capital One Financial Corp.'s
wholesale mortgage company includes the shut down of its American
Indian mortgage program, Tribal POINT Housing Partnership.
Three Fires LLC, an
economic development partnership of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin,
the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians, and the Viejas
Band of Kumeyaay Indians, both of Southern California, celebrated
the grand opening of the new Residence Inn by Marriott Sacramento
at Capitol Park, in the California Capitol of Sacramento,
in mid September. This is the first hotel located off-reservation
in California to be owned by a coalition of tribes. The Seminole
Tribe of Florida is expanding its brand of Hard Rock restaurants,
hotels and casinos around the world, after buying the company
earlier this year from a British company.
Alan Meister, an economist with the Analysis Group of Los
Angeles-based, reported, in July, in ''Indian Gaming Industry
Report',’ that the Indian
gaming industry in 2006 grew in revenue by 11% (totaling
$25 billion from 387 tribal facilities in 28 states, according
to National Indian Gaming commission figures published in June),
a decline from the industry average of 14.6% growth between 1997
and 2006. The states with the largest Indian gaming revenue
are California ($7.7 billion, or 30.3%) and Connecticut (just
under $2.5, or 9.8%), followed by Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida,
Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin, New York and Michigan, which
together produce almost 86% of the industry's financial yield.
Nebraska showed the most revenue growth in 2006 at 43.3% percent
over 2005, followed by Alaska (42.4%), Texas (32.5%), Oregon (25.8%)
and Oklahoma (24.7%). New Mexico gaming revenue increased 13.6%,
from $573.6 million to $651.7 million Only Louisiana, experienced
a decline in Indian gaming revenue, an impact of Hurricane
Katrina. In 2006, the Indian gaming industry ''directly supported
approximately 327,000 jobs and provided about $11.3 billion in
wages, compared to around 301,000 jobs with wages of $2.5 billion
in 2005. Factoring in secondary employment and wages paid by contractors,
suppliers and vendors, the industry generated some 703,000 jobs,
$2.8 billion in wages, and $11.7 billion in payroll taxes for
federal (58.3%), state (24.2%) and local (17.5% governments. Revenue
sharing in the form of direct payments to state and local governments
totaled $1.2 billion, in 2006: just over $1 billion for state
governments, $136.2 million for local governments and $39.3 million
to cover regulatory expenses. In terms of its overall gaming market
share, Indian gaming has gained ground on commercial casinos,
with 42% of the market share versus 52% for commercial casinos
and 6% for racinos. Over all, NICG reported in June that there
are now 415 Indian gaming facilities nationwide operated by more
than 200 tribes, range from casinos with slot machines and other
Las Vegas-style games to smaller gaming centers offering video
poker, bingo or other games short of slots. The figures released
June 4 did not include audit numbers from 28 small operations
that had not yet reported, and whose revenues were too small to
make a significant change in the reported figures.
The competition between tribally owned
and privately operated casinos remains vigorous. In Kansas, three
of the four gaming tribes in Kansas are considering an entry into
the commercial arena to stave off potential competition, following
recent state legislation that permits private operators to run
state-owned casinos in four counties - Ford and Wyandotte,
and then either Cherokee or Crawford and either Sumner or Sedgwick
counties. Voters in all but Sedgwick County have voted in favor
of casinos. The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, on June 19, threatened
litigation over the constitutionality of the new law, arguing
that Kansas' constitution does not allow private operation of
gaming facilities. Meanwhile, the Kickapoo Tribe, the Sac and
Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas, and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas
and Nebraska are developing proposals to enter the commercial
gaming sector. According to Meister's report, the five Class III
Indian casinos in Kansas generated $205 million in 2006. The four
tribes operating these casinos paid a combined $1.5 million to
Topeka to defray regulatory costs, but made no direct revenue-sharing
payments to the state. It is important to note that under the
Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, tribes are restricted as to where they can site their casinos
and how they can spend the proceeds, but under their compact,
payments to the state are relatively minimal. Operating a commercial
casino as a private business, rather than a tribal casino under
IGRA. would mean greater tax payments to the state, but siting
restrictions would be easier to overcome. While the use of proceeds
would presumably not come under the same legal scrutiny, as they
would be income for a private business rather than governmental
revenue, the tribes would pay state, federal, and possibly
local taxes on the business. For more information go to the ''Indian
Gaming Industry Report'' at: indiangamingreport.com.
With the local market saturated, and competition beginning in
the surrounding states to break its monopoly on casino gaming
in most of New England, Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun have led the Mashantucket
Pequots, and the Mohegan to expand around the country and at home,
trying to become national entertainment destinations, like Las
Vegas, that offer much more than gambling.
In Connecticut, each tribe is investing more than $700 million
to expand by adding hundreds of hotel rooms, convention space,
restaurants, stores and nightclubs. Foxwoods, run by the Pequots,
in a joint venture with Las Vegas-based MGM Mirage Inc. to build
another hotel and casino that will be called MGM Grand, expected
to be completed next year, that also includes a 4,000-seat performing
arts theater, the largest ballroom in the Northeast and new convention
space to accommodate thousands. Mohegan Sun is in the midst of
a $740 million expansion that will include a 38-story, 1,000-room
hotel with a spa that will open in 2010, the return of poker,
a new House of Blues music hall and more slot machines, stores
and restaurants. Both tribes have been developing partnerships
with other tribes around the country interested in opening casinos.
Foxwoods is working on casino projects in California, Kansas,
Philadelphia, St. Croix and the Bahamas. Mohegan Sun opened slot
machines at Pocono Downs in Pennsylvania, last year, and is working
on projects in New York, Massachusetts, Washington and Wisconsin.
Mohegan Sun has grown about 7 percent annually since it opened
more than a decade ago. But slower growth in third quarter, shows
that income may level off this fiscal year. Nationally,
Clyde Barrow, who directs the University of Massachusetts New
England Gaming Research Project, predicts that the industry
is still $1.5 billion to $2 billion away from market saturation.
Among the national expansion plans is a developing joint venture
between the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Pauma Band
of Mission Indians of California to build a luxury $300 million
resort and new casino at Casino Pauma in the hills of north San
Diego County. A study by the Connecticut Economic Resource
Center, ''Impact of Native American Gaming on Connecticut's Economy,''
released June 14, found that Connecticut's two Indian casinos
together contribute more than $422 million annually to the state
coffers, - a larger share of state revenue than corporate income
tax. The report documented that Foxwoods Resort Casino and
Mohegan Sun have played a crucial role in creating jobs and contributing
to the state economy over the past 15 years. With 20,200 employees
and an annual payroll of $838 million, the casinos are among the
largest employers in the state, responsible for 12% - 13% of the
state's employment growth over the past 15 years. The casinos
attracted more than 27.4 million visitors in 2006, and brought
in an estimated $234 million in out-of-state gaming funds to contribute
to state revenues. The casinos spent $696 million on purchases
from other Connecticut companies. Combined, the two casinos have
contributed $4.2 billion to the state - $2.5 billion from Foxwoods
since 1992, and $1.7 billion from Mohegan Sun since 1996. The
United Auto Workers began gathering employee signatures, in
June, in a bid to unionize workers at Foxwoods Resort Casino.
The Gabrielino-Tongva
Tribe sent the City of Garden Grove (near Disneyland), CA
a proposal, in late July, for building a Las Vegas-style
casino complex, including two hotels, in hopes of making Garden
Grove a tourist destination. The plan includes providing a college
scholarship for every high school graduate in Garden Grove, $5.1
billion to the city over 30 years, payment of $100 million for
infrastructure improvements and nearly 10,000 permanent jobs.
Because the Gabrielinos have no federal land, the tribe would
either have to promote a statewide ballot measure allowing state-recognized
tribes to build casinos, or achieve passage of a ''Gabrielino
Gaming bill'' in the Legislature and a negotiated compact with
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A study, released
in September, by the Center for Policy Analysis at the University
of Massachusetts - Dartmouth recommends offering gaming licenses
to the Mashpee Wampanoag and the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribes, finding,
if authorized by the Massachusetts governor and legislature, that
three resort casinos located in Suffolk Downs in East Boston near
Logan International Airport and in the southeastern and western
parts of the state, would generate $1.5 billion in gross gaming
revenues annually - or about $400 million in revenues for the
state within the first full year of operation, assuming a
27% tax. Licensing fees were projected to provide an additional
$60 million per year to support work force development, college
and university scholarships, and municipal construction jobs;
and as the resorts ''mature, while the three facilities would
likely create about 10,000 construction jobs and more than 10,000
facility jobs; grow the state's tourism, hospitality and convention
sectors; and provide businesses with the opportunity to compete
for more than $400 million annually in casino-related goods and
services contracts. The Michigan House of Representatives approved
a Class III gaming compact between the state and the Gun Lake
Tribe, August 8, with the state Senate still to consider the
measure. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, in
Michigan, opened their new Odawa Casino Resort, June 20. For
more information, visit www.odawacasino.com.
The Nez Perce Tribe opened its new hotel at Clearwater River
Casino and Resort, near Spalding, ID, April 27. The Kalispel
Tribe of Washington is expanding its Northern Quest Casino into
the Northern Quest Resort, tripling the facility to 121,000
feet, in a $275 million development expected to be finished this
fall. The Prairie Island Sioux Community of Michigan is
in the process of adding a new $50 million convention center
and hotel to its Treasure Island Casino. The Eastern Shoshone
on the Wind River Reservation, in Wyoming, opened their
first gaming facility, the Shoshone Rose Casino, in October,
as their neighbors, the Northern Arapaho, were completing
a larger casino.
Tribes in Oregon are moving well beyond casinos,
in their economic development and are coming to have a major role
in how the economy of the state develops. In 2005 tribal casinos
of the states 9 federally recognized tribes had a direct $675
million effect on Oregon’s economy, according to a study by
the economic consulting firm ECONorthwest, that was commissioned
by the tribes. The additional impacts to the construction,
manufacturing, wholesale, retail and services industries brings
the overall impact, at least, to $1.47 billion. Oregon’s tribes
employed 2,200 people in January 1995, which, by July
of this year, had almost quadrupled at 8,700. Meanwhile,
since the 2000 census, the
number of American Indians in Oregon living below the poverty
rate dropped 23%, and the number of tribal members going to college
has increased 88%.
The Cow Creek Tribe in Canyonville, OR has used
profits from its casino and resort, first launched in 1992,
to build 12 tribal enterprises worth several million dollars:
the Seven Feathers casino, a motel, an RV resort, a truck stop,
a restaurant, a communications company, a graphic design and marketing
company, a lodge, a cattle ranch and hay operation, and Umpqua
Indian Foods, where the tribe manufactures and sells jerky and
gift items, and self-storage units.
They also run their own electric utility. Cow Creek has become the second largest employer
in Douglas county. Employing about 1270. It has also built
a series of dams to be self-sufficient in water, and in time of
emergency, to be able to supply the city of Canyonville. Other
Oregon Native nations are experiencing a similar expansion, as
their casinos, alone, had an almost $1.5 billion economic impact
on Oregon in 2005, and the tribe estimates it had a
$142 million overall impact in Douglas County, in 2006.
Looking ahead, the Cow Creek are building new sewer treatment
facility, and are undertaking a major expansion to the hotel portion
of their resort. The Coquille Tribe, which an economic study
shows its businesses had a nearly $53 million impact
in Coos County, partnered
with Home Depot, in 2006, to create a $20 million shopping center. The nation operates an assisted living and Alzheimer’s
facility, the Mill Casino, a fiber-optic telecommunications company,
and Coquille Cranberries, which they say is the world’s largest
producer of organic cranberries. Providing more than 600 jobs,
Coquille is the second-largest employer in the county, paying
an estimated $15 million in wages and benefits a year — wages
that were 15% to 60% higher than those at comparable jobs elsewhere
in Coos County,
according to the tribe’s analysis.
The Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, in Oregon, have
brought two Fortune 500 companies to a new business park outside
of Pendleton: DaVita Inc. to build a kidney dialysis center and
with the international outsourcing company Accenture, to create
Cayuse Technologies, a tech business with software programming,
digital document processing and a call center. The nation owns
the Wildhorse Casino, a truck stop, an energy company, a market,
a golf course and a recreation area. Of the Umatilla’s $145
million 2007 budget, the tribe says that less than 20% of revenue
comes from casino profits; the rest comes from grants, contracts,
interest earnings, utility taxes and funding from the state and
federal governments. The tribe’s government and businesses
employment is 1,135 people, with a $35 million annual payroll,
making them also the second-largest employer in their county.
And the 250-plus Cayuse Technologies will create soon create
more than 250 additional jobs, paying more on average than other
area jobs, and may catapult them to becoming the largest employer
in the county. With the completion of buildings for the
first two tenants in the Umatilla’s Coyote Business Park, the
tribe has begin a push to bring light manufacturing to the
south end of the park early next year.
The Grand Ronde
is already the largest employer in Polk County, OR with 1,500
employees. Several years ago it helped finance an office building
in Portland. Now the nation has teamed up with the Siletz on
a $2.5 million business development project in Keizer, OR.
The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw
Indians, which built their casino in 2004, estimate that an
upcoming casino expansion will create 250 more jobs in the
town of Florence, population 8,000.
Gila River Farms and Fort McDowell are among
the Arizona tribes whose farming is increasing as urban development
eats up agricultural land in metropolitan Phoenix. Tribes
around the Phoenix metro area are growing everything from alfalfa
and pecans to citrus and barley, which they sell to major companies.
hungry for their crops. In 2006, the Gila River Farms operation
grossed $11 million in sales and Fort McDowell, $3 million.
The Southern Ute tribe in Colorado is now
worth nearly $4 billion, in part. because by taking over its
own gas production and purchasing gas pipelines extending to Texas,
it controls the distribution of roughly 1% of the country’s
natural gas supply. The Puyallup Tribe of Washington
is replacing a riverboat casino in Tacoma with a $300 million
international shipping container terminal.
Organizers of the 2008
Democratic National Convention in Denver, following a tradition
by Democrats of helping minority-owned banks by making deposits,
deposited $2 million in Naïve owned banks, in August, that
will remain in an interest free account until it is needed next
year. The money is part of $16 million provided by the federal
government to pay for the convention.
The Squaxin Island tribe
of Washington, which became the first in the West to manufacture
its own tobacco products in 2005, plans to expand its cigarette
business from coast to coast by the end of the year. The Squaxin
will follow the Seneca-Cayugas of Oklahoma in entering the national
tobacco market, who have sold their cigarettes in numerous states
since 1999. Individual tribal members at other tribes, including
the Yakamas in eastern Washington, also manufacture their own
cigarettes.
Educational
and Cultural Developments
Leaders from the Penobscot
Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Passamaquoddy
Tribe and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs of Msaine met the presidents
of Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges at Indian Island, on May
18, formally establishing a long-term relationship that will provide
recruitment of and full tuition for Native college students, an
expansion of Native studies courses and opportunities for Native
educators to teach them at the three colleges. The plans also
involve a commitment to work with young Native students in
elementary grades to motivate them toward higher education, and
to recruit Native professionals as faculty, counselors, lecturers
and museum curators for exhibits on Maine indigenous culture,
performers, artists, environmental scientists and researchers,
and as advisers at the colleges. Meanwhile, the University
of Maine at Orono continued to offer the five day Wabanaki
Summer Institute, assisting Maine kindergarten to grade 12 educators
in learning how to teach students about the history and culture
of Maine's indigenous peoples while earning undergraduate
or graduate credits,
Northwest Indian College,
historically a two-year college located on the Lummi reservation
near Bellingham, now offers a Bachelor of Science in Native Environmental
Science, its first four year degree.
Efforts to reopen Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl
(D-Q) University are continuing. A new board formed in the summer of 2005, and several former
students are currently working to address many of the reasons
the university lost its accreditation from The Western Association
of Schools and Colleges and its BIA funding. In September, the
seven-member board was inviting applications to join the board,
to reach the 16 required by college bylaws, a requirement that
has never been met.
The College of St.
Scholastica in Duluth received a new five-year $1.9 million grant,
in early September, from the U.S. Department of Education to
support its Ojibwe Language and Culture Education (OLCE) program.
More information is available at: http://www.businessnorth.com/pr.asp?RID=2386
The newly formed Faculty Advisory Group for the Native American
Studies Minor Program at Ball State University, in Indiana,
meet for the first time, September 12, with all three Native people
on faculty actively involved.
Mike Talley, a member
of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has become the principal of Rapid
City Central High School, the state's largest high school, which
has a large American Indian student population, as the school
serves the north side of Rapid City, where the majority of the
city’s 15,000 – 16,000 American Indians from various reservations
in the region reside. Talley is currently the principal at Standing
Rock Community Grant High School in Fort Yates, N.D., where he
has taught for the past seven years.
This school year, the
only two public school districts in South Dakota that require
state intervention because they have consistently missed AYP goals
under the federal law are on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian
reservations. To try to find ways of meeting the requirements
of the No Child Left Behind Act, that are beneficial to Indian
students, the South Dakota Department of Education hosted the
2007 Indian Education Summit, September 19-21. A variety of approaches
to Indian education were presented and discussed at the conference.
Among the presenters was Sandra J. Fox, a member of the Oglala
Lakota Nation, and a consultant on Indian education, stressed
the importance of incorporating Native American culture and history
into lessons and teaching in ways that are compatible with that
culture. She said, for example, that many Indian parents teach
their children by doing or showing, rather than telling, and that
such a method works well also in school with such children. Ms.
Fox also recommended that teachers use ‘instructional conversation’,
in which they sit in a circle with students, informally introduce
a subject they are about to teach, and ask for student input.
She said that Native American children also respond well to hearing
lessons in a storytelling form, which they are used to at home.
Some administrators in South Dakota districts with large numbers
of Native American students that have made adequate yearly progress
under the federal law say they stressed academic rather than cultural
approaches. For example, Amy Loeb, the principal of the one-school,
K-12 McIntosh school district on the Standing Rock Reservation
in South Dakota, said in an interview that her district was able
to make AYP with the help of after-school programs emphasizing
homework and tutoring, and summer programs focused on reading,
math, and enrichment classes. Similarly, Tim M. Mitchell, the
superintendent of the Chamberlain district, reported that the
940-student Chamberlain district near the Crow Creek Reservation
implemented programs focused on core academics when the district
missed making AYP for several years because Native American, special
education, and economically disadvantaged students did poorly.
He said the school recently moved out of the category of a school
needing improvement after it hired math and reading specialists
for every grade, extended the school day, and provided transportation
for children to stay after school for tutoring, among other measures.
Keith Moore, the director of the Indian education office for South
Dakota, said his office was reopened with himself and a half time
assistant, in July 2005, after being shut down for 15 years, and
is just starting to develop a clear picture of which schools with
many Native American students are doing well under NCLB. He stated
that recently the state has acquired new tools to improve Indian
education. In the last legislative session, the Indian Education
Act was passed, making the Indian education office permanent and
requiring that all teachers take a three-semester-hour course
in American Indian history and culture to become certified to
teach in the state. In South Dakota, Native Americans make up
12% percent of the state’s 02,000 students in public schools,
the largest single minority group. An additional 8,500 such students
attend Bureau of Indian Education schools in South Dakota.
The Tigua Tribe
of Texas has been relying on tribal elders to provide children
5-17 with the dual-purpose Youth Prevention Intervention Program
lessons of learning about Native American culture and the importance
of staying away from risky behaviors such as drug use and unsafe
sex, after school on weekdays. The effort is partly aimed
at preventing Tiguas from losing touch with their ancestry.
The Mendota Mdewakanton
Dakota Community is developing plans to create the Wakanyeza (“sacred
little ones”) Charter School along the Mississippi River,
in hopes of preserving its language and culture. If a sponsor
can be found, and obtained from the Minnesota Department of Education,
the school would open in the fall of 2008 in Mendota, MN, close
to the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers and
Fort Snelling. The school would serves students grades K-5 and
would emphasize Dakota tradition and American Indian culture.
--==+==--
Rosetta Stone Inc., creator of an emersion
language-learning program, has formed a partnership with the
Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana to develop software in the tribe’s
language, Sitimaxa. The Rosetta Stone Endangered Language
Program works with communities to develop unique immersion-learning
software. The
program collaborted with the Kanien'kehaka OnkwawÈn:na Raotitiohkwa
to develop Mohawk software for the community of Kahnawake
in 2006, and the NANA Corporation of Alaska to develop IÒupiaq
language learning software in 2007. The program and the Torngasok
Cultural Centre in Labrador are producing a version in Inuttitut.
For more information, visit www.RosettaStone.com.
Native
American Public Telecommunication's first production of the Native
Radio Theater project, a 90-minute collection of fictional audio
plays, was accepted in the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
in Toronto, Canada. The plays, "Super Indian," written
by recording artist, actor and writer Arigon Starr (Kickapoo);
"Melba's Medicine," written by Rose-Yvonne Colletta
(Lipan Mescalero Apache); and "The Best Place To Grow Pumpkins,"
written by Navajo playwright Rhiana Yazzie, were featured during
the eighth annual festival Oct. 17-21. The Native Radio Theater
project was created in 2005 with the Los Angeles-based Autry National
Center's program, Native Voices at the Autry to promote greater
awareness of the range of talent in the Native American theatre
community. The goal of Native Voices at the Autry is to develop
and produce new works for stage by Native American playwrights.
NAPT is debuting its second season of the Native Radio Theater
project starting Nov. 1 on AIROS.org which is NAPT's online
radio station. The project will also air on NV1.org. To read more
about NAPT's Native Radio Theater and learn about future projects,
go to NAPT's Web site at www.airos.org/theatre For more info
on the imagineNATIVEfestival, go to: www.imaginenative.org. To
learn more about Native Voices at the Autry, go to: www.autrynationalcenter.org/nativevoices.php.
International
Indigenous Developments
The UN General Assembly,
on September 13, adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, following more than two decades of consultation and
dialogue among governments and indigenous peoples from all regions.
Adopted by the Human Rights Council in June 2006, the Declaration,
which has since had some amendment, emphasizes the rights more
than 370 million indigenous peoples worldwide to maintain and
strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions and
to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and
aspirations. It establishes an important standard for eliminating
human rights violations against indigenous peoples worldwide and
for combating discrimination and marginalization. The declaration
was adopted by the General Assembly, with 143 nations voting in
support, 4 voting against (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and
the United States) and 11 abstaining (Azerbaijan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russian Federation,
Samoa, Ukraine). To view a webcast of the General Assembly session,
see: www.un.org/webcast/ga.html.
For more information on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, including the original text and recent amendments,, go
to: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/declaration.html.
At the conclusion of its Sixth Session,
in May, members of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues issued clear recommendations in a range of areas considered
critical for the physical, cultural and spiritual survival, identity
and well-being of the more than 370 million indigenous people
worldwide. Concerning the session’s main theme of lands, territories
and natural resources, the Forum urged States to take measures
to halt land alienation in indigenous territories, through, for
example, a moratorium on the sale and registration of land - including
the granting of land and other concessions in areas occupied by
indigenous peoples. Forum Chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
stated, “One of the key reasons why indigenous peoples are
being disenfranchised from their lands and territories is the
existence of discriminatory laws, policies and programs that do
not recognize indigenous peoples’ land tenure systems and give
more priority to claims being put by corporations – both state
and private.” The Forum reaffirmed indigenous peoples’
required central role in decision-making concerning their lands
and resources, as set forth in the United Nations Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Australian expert Michael Dotson and
Special Rapporteur charged with preparing a concept paper on the
scope of a study that would investigate to what extent customary
laws should be reflected in international and national standards
addressing the issue of indigenous traditional knowledge, presented
a report to the Forum (document E/C.19/2007/10) finding that,
while international, regional and national documents provided
some protection for indigenous traditional knowledge, they did
not adequately address the concerns of indigenous peoples.
Governmental bodies' efforts to prevent misappropriation and misuse
of indigenous traditional knowledge, though well-intentioned,
were insufficient. He noted the important role being played by
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), but said
that WIPO's pre-eminent role had constrained the debate primarily
within the parameters of intellectual property law, failed
to protect indigenous rights and interests because "Western
constructs of intellectual property focus on individual knowledge
and creativity, rather than on communal trans-generational knowledge".
He pointed out that, in constructing a study that developing an
appropriate process on how the issue should be addressed would
assist in working towards a successful outcome. Further, it
was time to recognize that indigenous traditional knowledge was
not simply an intellectual property issue. Nor was it simply a
human rights issue, a trade issue or an amalgamation of those
issues. The proper protection of indigenous traditional knowledge
was an indigenous issue and indigenous peoples should be central
to the process. For more go to http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/hr4924.doc.htm.
The May 2008 session of the forum
will focus on climate change. This will include research into
mitigation measures being taken and how these are impacting on
indigenous peoples. There will also be a special focus on the
Pacific region, as an area that is already feeling the adverse
impacts of climate change. The upcoming session will also devote
discussion to the issue of indigenous languages, given that 2008
has been declared the International Year of Languages by the General
Assembly and more than 4000 of the world’s remaining 6000 languages
are spoken by indigenous peoples, many of which are under threat
of extinction.
The 6th Session of the
Human Rights Council adopted a resolution (A/HRC/6/L.35)
on an informal meeting to discuss the most appropriate mechanisms
to continue the work of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations.
The Council has decided to request the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR) to convene an informal meeting in Geneva
for a day and a half open to the participation of States, indigenous
peoples and other stakeholders preceding the resumed December
session of the Council to exchange views on the most appropriate
mechanisms to continue the work of the Working Group on Indigenous
Populations. Connection with that, the OHCHR has posted a link
for participation and application process for taking part this
informal meeting at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/docs/informal/form.doc.
See also: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/groups/groups-01.htm.
The UN Human Rights Council reviewed
the mandates of the Independent Expert on the situation of human
rights in Burundi and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights
and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, on September
26, as it continued with its process of review, rationalization
and improvement of mandates. In the discussion on the mandate
of Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the Special Rapporteur on human rights
and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, said there was
little doubt that the mandate had provided a substantial and
valuable contribution, and its renewal was generally supported.
The mandate had helped put focus on the situation of indigenous
peoples in the work of human rights bodies, and had facilitated
dialogue and understanding between indigenous peoples, States,
and international organizations. The challenge before the
international community now was to make sure that the indigenous
peoples would in fact enjoy the rights recognized in the Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. On the main attainments of
the mandate, he said there had been great progress. Almost
no indigenous representatives were involved 25 years ago when
early discussion began on the issue. Now, as a result of collective
effort, there was recognition of indigenous people as full citizens
with full rights and needs, in their own lands.
World Telecommunication and Information
Society Day, in New York,
May 17, featured an event organized by the Global Alliance for
ICT and Development (GAID), "Tale of Two Worlds: Keeping
Pace with a Moving Target," with representatives of governments
and UN agencies, along with civil society and industry executives
met to share diverse perspectives. Indigenous Peoples’ views were
expressed by Roberto Múcaro Borrero (Taino), representing the
Indigenous ICT Task Force (IICTF). Borrero informed the
panel that the IICTF was an indigenous initiative with a mandate
to follow-up on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
He also noted that while indigenous peoples were a "major
group" represented throughout the WSIS processes, they were
relatively "invisible" from all official follow-up mechanisms.
Offering a recent example, Borrero pointed out the lack of indigenous
presence in the GAID publication "Foundations of the Global
Alliance for ICT and Development." He also stated that "transparency,
inclusion, and genuine partnerships" were essential to follow-up
initiatives. He then asked the panel, which included Mr. Sarbuland
Khan, the Executive Coordinator of GAID, "How can we be speaking
about the future when we cannot even communicate in the present?"
Borrero then noted the willingness of the IICTF to share information
such as the May 21 launching of a new international indigenous
portal developed by indigenous peoples at the sixth session of
the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, but consistent outreach
to GAID and the ITU yielded no response. Mr. Sarbuland Khan replied
to Borrero’s comments, assuring him and all those gathered that
GAID was indeed interested in working with Indigenous Peoples
and particularly the IICTF. He stressed the networking potential
being developed by GAID and hoped that the IICTF would be come
a part of the GAID "family."
The World Bank,
whose new President Robert B. Zoelick, recently specified a
green revolution in Africa as a top priority, in October,
posted an internal report that the bank has long neglected
agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes numerous Indigenous
peoples. The Bank, even with new leadership, is having
difficulty raising additional funds from wealthy nations,
who find their own budgets strained.
The Canadian government, in June created a $300 million
housing fund to jumpstart mortgage and rental markets on First
Nations reserves. The money would be used to collateralize
home loans, since the communal land status of the reserves makes
it difficult for lenders to encumber them with liens. In May,
an independent commission to settle land claims of Native Canadians
was proposed by the body inquiring into the shooting death
by police at a land claims protest in 1995. Many
of the policies and practices of the Canadian International
Development Agency promote and support the concept of including
traditional knowledge systems in project
planning and implementation. Because indigenous people are vulnerable to negative
impacts of development project, and because their knowledge bases
can significantly improve the understanding of these impacts,
including traditional knowledge can improve project results, outcomes,
and impacts.
The Assembly of First Nations filed a complaint with
the Canadian Human Rights Commission alleging that a lack of financing
of child welfare programs that has put thousands of Aboriginal
children at risk.
The provincial government
of British Columbia has set up a two-million dollar fund
to support First Nations language initiatives in early childhood
development programs. For details go to: http://tinyurl.com/2hs5zg. Students on
the Long Plain First Nation, Manitoba Reserve, near Portage la
Prairie, and three other reserves in Manitoba, will begin being
tested in math and language arts at school, this fall, as part
of a pilot project aimed at improving education on reserves.
At Long Plain, Chief Dennis Meeches said he agreed to have children
undergo testing because they are not succeeding in school. The
dropout rate on the reserve is as high as 40%, he said. For more,
go to: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/09/04/standardized-fn.html.
The Nadleh Whut'en Indian band
of the central interior of British Columbia, on September 6,
posted signs warning non-native logging contractors to leave the
Vanderhoof District west of Prince George in a dispute with the
provincial government over a money-losing forestry license agreement.
Chief Martin Louie said he was preparing to block several roads
into the area with log piles.
Vuntut
Gwich'in First Nation leaders, in September, were objecting
to the Yukon Environment Department’s lifting of long-standing
rules barring caribou hunting within a 500-metre corridor on either
side of the Dempster Highway (giving caribou hunters easy
access to the herd from the side of the road), and the Department’s
dropping the annual one-week ban on hunting, originally put in
place to allow leaders of the Porcupine caribou herd to migrate
across the northern highway undisturbed. Environment officials
say the changes were made to avoid a legal challenge by the Tr'ondek
Hwech'in First Nation of Dawson City. Charges have been stayed
against two Tr'ondek Hwech'in hunters who had been earlier facing
charges related to illegal highway hunting. But Chief Joe Linklater
of the Old Crow-based Vuntut Gwich'in told CBC News that the Porcupine
herd needs better protection rather than more hunting pressure.
A delegation of Indigenous Peoples
from the United States and Canada met with leaders in Venezuela
to unite in the global struggle for Indigenous rights, on September
25. The North American Indian delegations urged their Venezuelan
and Bolivian allies to vote "Yes" to the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The U.S. Indian
delegation included members of the International Indian Treaty
Council and American Indian Movement and tribal members of the
Tohono O'odham and Mohawk Nations. The delegates witnessed
Venezuela's National Assembly officially recognizing Indigenous
languages. "The Law is the 'Law of Indigenous Languages',
which states that Indigenous languages are official languages
of Venezuela, alongside Spanish. Therefore, they should be taught,
promoted and preserved by the State as part of our Indigenous
heritage. Some of the delegates attended the First International
Meeting of Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Peoples of America,
held in Venezuela on August 7-9, in conjunction with the celebrations
of the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. The Venezuelan
Minister of Peoples Power for Indigenous Peoples, Nicia Maldonado,
said Indigenous Peoples from 22 nations attended the Congress.
The closing ceremony was held in the Indigenous Community of Pemón
Kumarakapay, in Bolívar state. For more information contact Brenda
Norrell, s human rights editor for UN Observer and International
Report who runs the Censored website: brendanorrell@gmail.com.
A new World Bank study, Economic
Opportunities for Indigenous Peoples in Latin America, written by Patrinos and Skoufias, examines why the majority
of Latin Americas indigenous peoples have not gained from development
nor been able to increase their earnings and boost their living
standards on par with their non-indigenous neighbors. The report
focuses on jobs and income, the distribution of land, access
to financial services, access to infrastructure and basic services,
and social networks, as key areas in which indigenous peoples
are at a disadvantage, compared to the non-indigenous population.
The indigenous population in Latin America is estimated at 28
million, almost 80% of whom are reported to be living in poverty.
Historically, indigenous people have been the poorest and most
excluded of social sectors in Latin America, and discrimination
has resulted in extreme poverty and the associated material deprivation.
The new World Bank study aims to move beyond a focus on human
development to look at the distribution and return to income generating
assets and the affect these have on income generation strategies.
The full report is available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-116923540
1815/Synthesis_ConferenceEditii on_FINAL. Pdf, or visit: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/0,,menuPK:2
58559~pagePK:158889~piPK:146815~theSitePK:258554,00.html.
Subcomandante Marcos said, in September,
that with Zapatistas under attack in Chiapas by police and paramilitary,
plans for central and southern Chiapas were suspended, but the
Zapatistas would proceed with the Intercontinental Encuentro in
Vicam Pueblo Oct. 11 -- 14. Marcos stated, "We will do what we have to do: resist.
It does not matter if we have to do it alone. It wouldn’t be the
first time; before we became coffee-shop kitsch, alone indeed
we were." Read Marcos September 25 statement: http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2007/09/zapatistas-under-attack-suspend-plans.html/.
In contrast to the Zapatistas, the Marxist Ejercito Popular
Revolucionary Army, which has carried out at least 88 kidnappings
in the past eight years, increased its operations, carrying
out three bombings or gas pipelines this summer and fall.
Following last year’s hotly contested election, Mexico’s Congress,
in September, was considering proposals to change electoral
laws, specifically aimed at limiting negative campaigns and
preventing businesses and individuals from influencing elections.
The proposal would require all TV and radio advertising to come
only from parties, who would send it to a revamped Electoral Institute,
which would require stations to carry three-minute ads at no charge.
The institute could block any ad that denigrates a candidate or
party. Free speech advocates complain that the proposed rules
would give the institute too much power, and could bring back
the old authoritarian style government. Many observers say that
the wounds of last year’s presidential elections have not healed,
and that these rules would not help heal them.
Thousands of Mayan Indians lost
their thatch-roofed homes, and the trees that are their primary
source of living, when Hurricane Dean blew through the Yucatan
peninsula of Mexico, August 21. The worst hurricane to strike the area in memory
left trees scattered and broken in numerous villages, where fallen
mangoes, oranges, guanabanas and mameys will never be harvested.
Indigenous Candidate,
and Nobel Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, finished a distant sixth
of 14 candidates, with 3% of the vote, in the Guatemalan Presidential
election, in early September. Months prior to the election
it was reported that if she were to lose, that she would run again
in the next presidential race.
The Supreme Court of
Belize, on October 18, found in favor of the Maya villages
of Conejo and Santa Cruz, granting the order sought by the villages
that their customary land tenure practices give rise to property
rights that are protected under the Constitution of Belize.
In announcing the decision of the court, the Chief Justice stated
that the failure of the government of Belize to recognize and
protect those rights constitute a violation of the constitutional
protections of property, equality, life and security of the person.
The Chief Justice affirmed that Belize is obligated to respect
and protect Maya customary land rights, not only by the Constitution,
but also by international treaty and customary law, including
the recent United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. The decision is expected to result in an increase
in protection and land rights for indigenous people in Belize.
For more information go to: http://www.channel5belize.com/, or http://www.7newsbelize.com/.
The Inter-American Human Rights Court, the judicial arm
of the Organization of American States, in early August, ordered
Colombia to pay $232,000 and make other amends to the Nasa indigenous
community for the illegal seizure, torture and murder of German
Escue Zapata, a community leader. On February 1, 1988. According
to court documents, an anti-guerilla unit staged a violent nighttime
raid on Escue Zapata's home on Feb. 1, 1988. Military testimony
indicated that the soldiers thought Escue Zapata was a guerilla
and had hidden weapons in his home. Soldiers assaulted the leader
and dragged him from his home in front of his mother and other
family members. Shortly afterwards, shots were heard on the outskirts
of the community and by the time they found him, Escue Zapata
was dead. Before he was killed, soldiers must have beaten the
victim severely, according to the report, which also noted that
Escue Zapata's family and community were ignored by Colombian
officials when they called for an investigation. The case against
the anti-guerilla unit sat, unresolved, in the local district
attorney's office for more than a decade before the court stepped
in.
The widening scandal in Columbia, illuminating
that officials high up in the administration of President Uribe
and in the armed forces are linked to right-wing paramilitary
groups, involved in the drug trade, responsible for massacring
thousands of the rural poor, and seizing up to a quarter of the
arable land in the nation, creating 2.5 million internal refugees
(second largest in the world, exceeded only by Sudan), has
assisted the rise of the new nonviolent left wing party, Palo
Democractico Independiente (PDI), which took 22% of the vote
in last year’s election. As the insurgent Fuerazas Armadas Revolucionarias
de Colombia (FARC), has descended from being a champion of the
rural poor, into armed bands with little political concern, PDI
has gained support in rural areas. Given that 3000 of the 4000
civilian deaths a year in the government-insurgent struggle are
inflicted by government forces and paramilitary, PDI may become
a major political force.
At the end of May and beginning
of June, the Peruvian government blocked oil exploration by
US company Barrett Resources and Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF's
EIA in the northern Amazon, over concerns about uncontacted tribes
living there. At the beginning of July, the Interethnic
Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP)
wrote to 14 major international companies telling them not search
or drill for oil in areas where three uncontacted tribes live,
saying, 'We want you to understand the extreme vulnerability of
these isolated peoples and the risks they will face if hydrocarbon
activity takes place on their land.' For more information contact
Miriam Ross, (+44) (0)20 7687 8734, mr@survival-international.org,
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2457.
A
Paraguayan rancher illegally occupying part of the Ayoreo -Totobiegosode
Indians' ancestral territory destroyed key hunting grounds,
in June. The deforestation occurred in the Totobiegosode's heartland,
which they have been trying to recover since 1993. The area is
protected by injunctions which prohibit any clearances until the
Indians' land claim is resolved. A group of Indians were on a
hunting expedition, searching for the large tortoises that form
a key part of their diet in the dry season, when they saw two
bulldozers clearing the forest. The Indians attempted to stop
the bulldozers from operating, but Cesar Sosa, the rancher, threatened
to have them arrested. The Totobiegosode immediately informed
GAT, a Paraguayan NGO that has been working with them to
protect their land since 1993. The following week representatives
of the police, the Environment Ministry, the Attorney-General's
office and the Forestry Department, accompanied by Totobiegosode
leaders and observers from GAT and Survival International, traveled
to Sr. Sosa's ranch and impounded the bulldozers. Under Paraguayan
law Sr. Sosa, being over 70 years of age, is immune from prosecution,
but the bulldozers' owner, a powerful local businessman, faces
a substantial fine. The Totobiegosode leaders hope that the authorities'
action will deter other ranchers from clearing their forest. Several
of them, however, have succeeded in getting the injunctions lifted
on their ranches, and the whole area being claimed by the Totobiegosode
is under severe pressure of deforestation. Many of the Indians'
relatives still live uncontacted in the forest. In July, Satellite
imagery revealed that the last refuge of the uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode
tribe was being illegally destroyed.
The ''Report by the International Mission of Observation on the
Institutional Violence Against the Mapuche People in Chile,''
co-sponsored by Amnesty International, finds that Chilean military
and police have assaulted, harassed and killed Mapuche people
in various Chilean communities. The report, delivered, in
late July, to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet who, in the
last year, has convened national dialogues regarding the situations
confronting the indigenous people of the nation, alleges severe
abuses against a group of Mapuche people in Chile by police and
others. AI and the other groups are waiting for an official response
to calls for investigation of the charges. This
report follows a recent visit by these agencies and a similar
mission lead by the U.N. Special Rapporteur in 2003, where observers
came to investigate a series of incidents recorded in Temucuicui
of the Araucania region. In the earlier visits, both the rapporteur
and the U.N.'s Human Rights Committee urged the Chilean government
to ''form an ad hoc commission that would investigate charges,
clarify issues and formulate recommendations that would lead to
the cessation of human rights violations, sanction the guilty
parties and repair the damages caused by them.'' Observers returned
to Ercilla and the Temucuicui community in January of 2007 - as
these areas were the most affected by police actions. The full
report is available at: www.observatorio.cl.
Five leaders of the Mapuche, Lonko
Puran community in the Neuquen district of Argentina were found
not guilty, on June 19, of charges of organizing the nonviolent takeover
by about 150 community members of 12 oil wells shortly after Pioneer
Natural Resource moved onto their land without permission or notification,
in 2001. The verdict stated that the Mapuche had the right
to demonstrate on their own territory, based on UN Indigenous
Peoples Convention No. 169. Acquitted defendant Martin Velasquez
Maliqueo said the victory is only a small step in the struggle
to reclaim Mapuche land from what they see as an illegal takeover
by two American oil and gas companies: Pioneer Natural Resources
and Apache Corporation, which bought out pioneer after the incident.
President Evo Morales of Bolivia
and his allies for a plurinational state won a vote in the national
legislature, in June, to have a Constituent Assembly formed to
consider their plan for new governmental arrangements. The proposal
calls for a type of republic, with approximately 36 indigenous
autonomous regions in some control of their natural resources
and having to pay taxes and follow federal laws. A key provision is in the proposed second article, ''Given
the pre-colonial existence of the indigenous peoples and originario
nations and their ancestral dominion over their territories, this
constitution guarantees their self-determination which is expressed
in the will to conform, and being part of, a united, plurinational,
communitarian state, and in the right to self-government, their
culture and reconstitution of their territorial entities within
the framework of the constitution.'' Later sections of the proposal
state, ''[The autonomous regions] are constituted on the basis
of the ancestral territories of indigenous peoples, originario
nations and campesinos, that have geographical continuity or discontinuity,
or parting from the geographical spaces occupied by them ... The
decision of transforming an existing territorial entity into an
indigenous, originario, campesino territorial entity is made via
the procedures and mechanisms of direct consultation according
to the constitution and the law ... The indigenous, originario,
campesino autonomous territorial entities, by their own will and
in conforming with the procedures established by the law can organize
themselves into: a) indigenous, originario territories that correspond
to a local collective that inhabits ancestral territories, with
a cultural identity, government and their own competencies; b)
municipalities and: c) regions ... [The entities can] designate
government authorities in accordance with their own norms and
procedures and define norms and forms of management, administration
and control over their territory and budget.'' Although the indigenous
and mestizo majority live mostly in the west and center of the
country, more than a few indigenous communities live in the more
prosperous eastern part of Bolivia, home also to the very rich
and increasingly desperate opposition. Hundreds of right-wing
university students marched to Sucre in hopes of disrupting the
meeting of the Constituent Assembly. They were met by a much larger
group of indigenous and campesino activists who halted their march.
Morales helped diffuse the situation by guaranteeing that universities
and academia would retain their autonomies in the new plan, as
opposed to what the students had been told by agitators. The
armed forces, which, in late June, promised to protect the Morales
administration, had their head, Gen. Wilfredo Vargas announce
a more serious threat in a radio interview on June 20. ''There
are groups who have proclaimed publicly an armed insurrection,
division or independence, and they put the integrity of the country
in danger. 'The Armed Forces will not allow that situation.''
''The civic movements, if they stay in the democratic path, they
can help to reason, to think about and listen to the clamor of
the public, but if the civic movements have other ends in mind,
of satisfying the ambitions of groups of persons, that requires
another treatment.'' In the confrontation at the Constituent Assembly,
indigenous leader Justino Leano put it more directly, ''... we
are going to defend the indigenous autonomies until the last consequence,
because it is our right.'' It will be some time until the Constituent
Assembly decides on a new constitution, but that could happen
next year. On October 19, a company of Bolivian troops who
had been ordered by President Morales to take control of the country’s
busiest airport, at Santa Cruz, retreated in the face of thousands
local residents storming the airfield, after being urged to do
so by the Governor of Santa Cruz, a strong opponent of the President.
The incident arose out of a dispute over whether the national
or provincial government has authority to collect fees from airlines
using the airport. Santa Cruz is the center of the opposition,
of mostly wealthier Bolivians, opposed to the progressive policies
of President Morales. Simon Romero, “Radical Brings Some Stability
to Bolivia,” New York Times, September 18, wrote. “For
all the worries that Mr. Morales’s radicalism would create economic
and political turmoil in Bolivia, the reality of his tenure appears
to be that the country is relatively stabile. Social divisions
and poverty remain difficult problems, but Mr. Morales has surprised
many, including some in the business community, with his staying
power.” “For now, Mr. Morales, dressed in Jeans and tennis shoes,
seems at ease after attaining the highest approval ratings of
any president in recent memory.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
plans to create a Bank of the South to finance regional development
projects, as at least a partial alternative to the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund,
was moving ahead in October, with Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela planning to
provide up to $7 billion in initial funding. Later in the
month, Columbia’s President, who often disagrees with Chavez
policies, stated that his nation wished to be included, not
as a rejection of international lending institutions, but an “expression
of solidarity and brotherhood.” The plan is for the bank to invest
in infrastructure and help stimulate regional trade. Venezuela
has been working to develop an alternative economy. In
2006, the government reported having registered over 100,000
worker coopertives, with over 1.5 million worker members, supported
with government financing, training and technical assistance.
Bt forcing oil companies to renegotiate extraction contracts,
Chavez raised royalties paid the government from 1% to 33%, Much
of the money is being invested in economic development and service
programs for the poor, that are somewhat innovative. There is
debate as to whether the spending is being well directed, as
well as to the extent that disorganization and corruption are
detracting from the programs. The state sponsored coops could
help transform society by providing economic, social and political
development for many of the poorest people, a large percentage
of whom are Indigenous. But some experts on cooperatives say that
there are some problems with the current cooperative system that
need to be overcome. For a more extensive discussion, see Steve
Ellner, “The trial (and Errors) of Hugo Chavez, In These Times,
September 2007, pp. 25-27.
Two indigenous leaders Gloria Ushigua
and Rosa Gualinga, internationally known human rights defenders,
were attacked on Sunday August 26. After months of receiving
death threats for their efforts to protect the territory of the
Zapara people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, they were beaten until
unconscious, thrown in the trunk of a car, and later, apparently,
left for dead. Ushigua, a leader of the Zapara people, and Gualinga,
of the Andoas people, work closely with the Zapara an indigenous
people in danger of becoming extinct, with a current population
in Peru and Ecuador of approximately 650. Ushigua is an elected
representative of Nacionalidad Zapara de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana
(NAZAE), the official representative organization of the Zapara
people in Ecuador, which works to promote and protect the lives
and lands of the Zapara people. Zapara territory is rich with
natural resources, such as oil, timber and botanical medicines,
and there are varied interests who are trying to exploit them.
In recent years, a group of people who are not Zapara have made
several attempts to illegally seize from NAZAE the official right
to represent the Zapara people and take control of Zapara land.
Several people in this group have been threatening Gloria and
Rosa for over a year. The threats intensified in recent months,
after NAZAE won a legal victory over the group, On August 26th,
the two indigenous leaders were attacked by 4 men, one of whom
they identified to police as Nelson Santander Viteri. A witness
identified another of their attackers as Juan Carlos Freire. a
police officer. At the time of this report, Ushigua, who had
a broken arm and a high fever, and Gualinga had been to the military
hospital in Puyo several times, over a number of days, but were
not given a proper medical examination or treatment. The two women
went to the police station in Puyo to file criminal complaints
against these men but have been largely ignored. A reliable
and credible witness has told the group Land is Life (who released
this report) that Nelson Santander Viteri told him that the reason
for the attack was to kill Ushigua. Other indigenous women in
Puyo have also come forward to tell Land is Life that they have
been beaten by Nelson Santander Viteri in the past. Land and
Life believes that the two women's lives remain in danger,
and have asked People to make appeals to Governor of Pastaza
Ismael Fabricio Arcos Lopez, Calle Atahualpa y 10 de Agosto, Puyo,
Pastaza, Ecuador, Telephone: 03-2885308 03-2885423, Fax: 03-2885457,
secretariagober@yahoo.com,
with copies to Gustavo Larrea, Ministro de Gobierno, Espejo y
Benalcazar, Quito, Ecuado, Telephone: 593 2 295566, gustavolarreacabrera@hotmail.com,
and to Dra. Lourdes Tiban, Secretaria Ejecutiva Nacional, Consejo
de Desarrollo de las Nacionalidades, y Pueblos del Ecuador (CODENPE),
Ave. Garcia Moreno, Quito, Ecuador, Telephone: 593 2 258 1319,
Fax: 593 2 258 1559, ext. 109, ltiban@codenpe.gov.ec, expressing concern
for the safety of Gloria Ushigua and Rosa Gualinga, and urging
authorities to take immediate and effective action to protect
them and ensure that they receive the medical attention that they
require, and to order a thorough investigation into this attack,
with results made public and those responsible brought to justice.
For more information contact Land is Life, telephone: 978-660-2102
Fax: 202-544-7462, lil@igc.org.
Indian
leaders in Brazil were voicing their opposition, in August, to a draft law, which, if approved, would
allow mining in indigenous territories. The results of its
passage would likely include increase of dispossession of Indigenous
people from their lands, and serious pollution of water, which
Indian people rely on for drinking, cooking, washing and bathing.
Tribal leader, Davi Yanomami, of the Yanomami organization, Hutukara,
traveled to England in late August help bring international pressure
against passage of the bill. In January, Brazil, for the first
time, was allowing large scale logging in the deep Amazon rainforest,
on a licensing basis, gambling that a new monitoring mechanism
carried out by a just launched federal forest service collaborating
with local officials will keep logging on approved lands, under
official rules, reducing tensions over land ownership and protecting
tribal rights. Environmentalists and Indigenous activists
are concerned that there are too few and inexperienced federal
monitors, and that many local officials are too easily corrupted.
The Santo Antônio and Jirau dams
proposed as part of the Madeira River Complex have received a
commitment of partial funding from the Brazilian national bank
Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento (BNDES) and forms part of the
portfolio of 335 internationally-financed megaprojects known as
IIRSA (the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure
of South America). The Madeira Complex includes four dam
projects: two in Brazil, one binational dam between Brazil and
Bolivia, and one in Bolivia. Locks built to control the flow
of water through the dams and dredging at the head of the 3,380
km. river would also expand transport of soy, timber, and minerals
along the Madeira, integrating a waterway that extends from the
Peruvian and Bolivian Andes to the Atlantic port of Belém. However,
the economic benefits are not likely to reach two protected
indigenous areas and critics claim cheaper transport costs on
the river would provide an incentive for the expansion of soybean
production in neighboring Rondônia and Amazonas states, increasing
deforestation and land invasions of the type already problematic
in the Amazon. Reports estimate that the dam projects would
forcibly relocate up to 3,000 families along the length of
the Madeira, and the pressure on environmental and fishery
resources could become intense. For details see: Zachary Hurwitz,
“The Madeira Complex: International Banks to Fund Deforestation
and Displacement,” on the Americas Program web site: “The Madeira
Complex: International Banks to Fund Deforestation and Displacement,”
www.americaspolicy.org/am/4235.
In May, Chief Almir Surui of the
Surui people approached the Internet giant Google and asked for
high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor illegal loggers and
miners on the tribe's 600,000-acre reserve in southern Brazil.
Though high-tech mapping has been used internally by Amazon people
to track illegal activity and record knowledge, this will be the
first time an Amazon tribe will share their own vision of their
territory with the rest of the world via Google Earth, according
to Vasco van Roosmalen, Brazil director for the Amazon Conservation
Team, who has worked with the Surui to develop the project. Other
Amazon tribes are also interested in using Google Earth, van Roosmalen
said, but are waiting to see how the Surui project works out.
600 members of the Via Campesina
have occupied the 123-hectare site in Santa Tereza do Oeste, in
the Brzilian state of Paraná, since March 14, 2006, after it was
discovered that Syngenta had illegally planted 12 hectares of
genetically modified soybeans at the site. Paraná state Governor Roberto Requião signed a decree on
November 9, 2006 to expropriate the site for the public interest,
because of Syngenta's considerable environmental crime. Despite
Requião's decree, and continuous pressure from social movements
and civil society around the world, the realization of the
expropriation of the site from Syngenta is threatened due to the
immense power of agribusiness in Brazilian politics. Renne
Lee says, “The expropriation of Syngenta would offer civil society
worldwide a tangible, popular method to resist and attack the
behemoth of agribusiness power: non-violent occupations”. For
more information see Rennie Lee, “Allied with Brazilian Agribusiness,
Syngenta Resists Governor's Decree to Expropriate Site” at : www.americaspolicy.org.
The Karitiana tribe,
with a reserve in the Western Amazon of Brazil, is asking
for compensation, and is seeking to stop having samples of their
blood sold at $85 a piece by Coriell Cell Repositories, a nonprofit
in New Jersey, to scientists, only for research purposes.
The lab says the original blood samples were taken with consent,
but the tribe says that they allowed blood to be drawn from tribal
members in the late 1970s, and again in 1996, in return for the
promise of medicine they never received. The tribal members had
no idea how western science function and did not give permission
for their blood to be sold. The Surui and Yamomani peoples of
Brazil have similar complaints. Coriell is not the only repository
involved in supplying blood from Indigenous people in Brazil to
researchers.
Survival International reported in
late May that The Peruvian government has blocked oil exploration
plans in the Amazon amidst fears for at least two uncontacted
tribes living in the area, turning down an application for a drilling
permit by Spanish company Repsol YPF. There are an estimated
15 different uncontacted tribes in Peru and all are threatened
with extinction due to oil exploration and illegal logging. 70%
of the Peruvian Amazon has now been opened up to oil prospecting.
Survival International's Director, Stephen Corry, said, 'This
is an important step in recognizing the existence and extreme
vulnerability of the uncontacted tribes. However, the only way
their rights, lives and health are really going to be guaranteed
is by prohibiting oil companies from working there. This is their
land and international law recognizes that. So should Repsol.'
However, in September, two companies were planning to explore
for oil in Peruvian rainforest inhabited by uncontacted tribes.
The companies, Barrett Resources of the US and Repsol YPF of Spain
revealed plans to 'communicate' with them using megaphones if
their oil crews are attacked. Peru's national Indian organisation,
AIDESEP, labeled 'farcical', since no one knows the languages
the Indians speak, and they are likely to view oil crews as hostile
intruders. In the past oil company workers in the Amazon region
have been killed by isolated Indians. Despite this critical risk
to their own workers, and the equal danger of spreading fatal
diseases to the Indians, the, have refused to suspend their plans.
For further information contact Miriam Ross on (+44) (0)20 7687
8734 or email mr@survival-international.org,
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2455.
A group of
87 previously unknown indigenous people fleeing gunfire
that killed 15 of their people and wounded another, and further pursuit by ''white men,'' arrived in the western Brazilian
indigenous Kayapo village of Peixoto de Azevedo, in the last week of May, according to press reports and statements
by the country's National Foundation of the Indian (FUNAI). The Indigenous
refugees are members of an isolated
group of indigenous people of the Metykire ethnicity, related
to the Kayapo people. The Metykire refugees told officials that
they were being fired upon and then further pursued by white men
who had recently arrived in their region, an area that is under
federal protection and not open to commercial exploitation. Local
officials speculated that the assailants were probably either
illegal gold miners or loggers.
Twenty-one Botswana Bushmen arrested in June and July for hunting to feed their families had all charges against them dropped, on
September 4. However, Six additional Gana and Gwi Bushmen were
arrested, in September, by Botswana police for hunting on their
ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana,
despite last December’s High Court of Botswana ruling that the
Bushmen had the right to live inside the reserve. By late September,
Charges against some Bushmen hunters had been dropped, but water
ban remained, with the government refusing to let Bushmen who
have gone back to their land use their water borehole. As of October
9, additional Bushman had been arrested for hunting, both in the
Reserve and in New Xade resettlement camp, according to First
People of the Kalahari, a Bushman human rights organization, bringing
the total arrests since the High Court decision to at least 48.
For further information contact Miriam Ross on (+44) (0)20
7687 8734, email mr@survival-international.org, http://www.survival-international.org/.
Tribal fisherfolk in 44 hamlets on a dammed
river in central India protested the loss of their livelihoods
with peaceful sitins outside the office of the Satpura National Park, a tiger
sanctuary in Hoshangabad district, against the Madhya Pradesh
state government's decision not to renew their fishing lease.
The reason cited is that their fishing grounds in the man-made
Tawa reservoir fall within the protected area of the rugged and
thickly forested park. But in 2005, when the Indian government
appointed a Tiger Task Force to review the 30-year-old conservation
project to save the endangered big cat, it had endorsed their
fishing rights, say activists of the Tawa Matsyay Sangh (TMS),
a federation of 34 fishing cooperatives that represent some 1,600
fishing families. The task force in its report had expressly stated
its appreciation of how these tribal fisher folk had, for a decade,
sustainably managed natural resources. According to the report,
compared to earlier management first by the state and then a private
contractor, ''the cooperative regime has been able to manage production,
maintenance of stock, employment and income generation most efficiently''.
TMS earned the well-deserved reputation of a model cooperative
-- providing sustainable livelihoods with the enforcement of a
conservation strategy. For more information go to: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36495.
In June, the provincial government of Rajastan,
in India, agreed to set up a panel to study whether the Indigenous
Guijar people, who have been disrupting tourism with sometimes
violent demonstrations that left 14 dead, are more “backward”
than currently classified, which would make them eligible for
affirmative action and other benefits.
The Malaysian Human Rights Commission, reported on the 15,485 Penan tribes’ people living in Malaysia's
eastern Sarawak state, roughly 97 percent of whom have abandoned
their traditional nomadic lifestyle in favor of permanent rural
settlements in recent decades, in July, saying that "A majority
of the Penans remain one of the most deprived communities in Malaysia.
Apart from land issues, the survival, livelihood and development
of the Penans is further stunted as a majority of them live in
abject poverty." Despite cultivating rice and vegetables
on small farms, many Penans - who have a unique, centuries-old
system of establishing ownership and stewardship of land that
is handed from one generation to the next - remain reliant on
rain forests to supply their food, which includes wild boar, sago
and jungle fruits, and other necessities. The Penan complain
that their ancestral land is increasingly being violated by logging
and oil palm plantation activities, particularly because laws
do not recognize or protect their indigenous customs and right
to land ownership. The panel's report said, "Claims
made (by Penans) on ancestral land are often not considered by
the relevant authorities and those who clear the forest areas
and commence logging and oil palm activities," adding that
the state government should review its nearly 50-year-old Sarawak
Land Code to change provisions on native customary land rights.
The report also found that the Penans also need the government's
help in socio-economic matters because they have scant access
to poverty eradication programs and other amenities, including
nutritious food and clean water, health care and formal education.
The report found that, Measures to enhance accessibility to financial
assistance need to be implemented." "Affirmative action
needs to be formulated and implemented to facilitate the enrollment
of Penan children in secondary schools and at the tertiary level."
The Malaysian government reviews recommendations made by the commission
but is not obliged to carry them out.
Police in New Zealand, acting under the post-9/11 Suppression of Terrorism Act, October 15, and making
allegations of terrorism, raided homes and offices, undertaking
searches – in what critics have called a fishing expedition - and
arresting of Maori activists in Maori communities in the Urewera
ranges, as other Maori sovereignty
campaigners, environmentalists, and other activists were arrested
in a major series of Police raids throughout the country.
Prominent Tuhoe Maori sovereignty
campaigner, community worker, and artist, Tame Iti, his nephew
Rawiri, and 15 others were arrested. Most have been denied bail
and remain in jail. There have been complaints (see International
Activities above) that there was no legitimate basis for the raids,
and that they were undertaken for political purposes. Ruatoki
Maori charge that among many other outrages, armed police in black
commando gear traumatized children by searching school buses.
As of October 20, charges laid against the 18 arrestees have all
been under the Arms Act, not the Terrorism Suppression Act, and
no specific grounds for the antiterrorist raids had been given
by authorities. Critics have state that, in fact, none of the
procedures of the Suppression of Terrorism Act were used, and
that most search warrants were granted under the Summary Offences
Act and most arrests were made under the Firearms Act, both of
which are conventional, and have nothing to do with terrorism.
They add that there no Maori or other people in New Zealand on
the list of people and organizations that section 22 of the Suppression
of Terrorism Act authorizes the Prime Minister to name or designate
as a terrorist entity.
This spring, Prime Minister John
Howard of Australia led his government to react strongly
to reports of widespread child abuse in the Northern Territory
committed by whites and Aboriginal people in Aboriginal communities,
with an emergency intervention, calling in police from other
areas “to restore law and order” in Northern territory Indigenous
communities, bringing in the Military and doctors to do check
children’s health; withholding welfare payments from parents whose
children are out of school; and taking over Aboriginal lands,
revoking the ability of Aboriginal councils to determine who can
enter their remote communities. In doing so, Howard completely
ignored the recommendations in the report commissioned by the
Northern Territory on Aboriginal Sex Abuse, Little Children
Are Sacred, compiled and written by former prosecutor, Rex
Wild and Aboriginal justice advocate, Pat Anderson. Anderson states
that while Howard’s response has helped bring needed attention
to the problem, his approach is completely inappropriate. As set
out in the report’s 97 recommendations, to be effective, and not
counterproductive, the government needs to involve the community
in designing and implementing programs and services that will
help end child abuse. Community-based offender rehabilitation
is also posited as a key policy. Anderson states that a short
term crisis intervention is insufficient, “Clearly a greater investment
in prevention of abuse and the structural forces or factors that
input on the health and wellbeing of a community (e.g. education,
substance abuse, housing, attitudes to abuse and violence, and
building on cultural and other community strengths) are required.”
Similarly, Anderson comments that in contrast to the Howard
government’s ban on alcohol use in Aboriginal communities, since
“prohibition doesn’t really work,” community based alcohol management
programs are needed. Over all, Anderson says, “We don’t need
the army. We just need to start developing proper programs. For
more see Rebecca Harris, “For the Children,” Cultural Survival
Quarterly, Fall 2007, and Jennifer Martiniello, “Howard's
New Tampa - Aboriginal Children Overboard,” in Dialoguing, elsewhere
in this Journal. Then, on August 17, the Howard government
pushed through legislation for his Northern Territory (NT) interventions.
One piece of legislation (the Assets Appropriation Bill) enables
the government to seize all Aboriginal assets owned by Aboriginal
corporations and communities in the Northern Territory and nationalize
them. This is what Hitler did to the Jews in the 1930s. Many
commentators complain that this is outright theft, (see. Jennifer
Martiniello, “Howard's New Tampa - Aboriginal Children Overboard,”
in Dialoguing below). A new National Aboriginal Alliance to
fight back against the Howard interventions has been formed.
To keep up to date on developments go to: http://www.nationalaboriginalalliance.org/.
=======<<<<<<<<[[[[[[[[[*]]]]]]]]]>>>>>>>>=======
